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‘Multitasking’ or ‘divided attention’ is the ability of a person to perform tasks that require different cognitive functions simultaneously. While we want children to be able to focus on whatever they are learning (or doing), technology also imposes situations where they need to be able to perform multitasking. Research indicates that the brain’s ability for multitasking is rather limited, but can be improved with practice <ref>Watson, J. M., & Strayer, D. L. (2010). Supertaskers: Profiles in extraordinary multitasking ability. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 17(4), 479-485.</ref>, <ref>Bier, B., de Boysson, C., & Belleville, S. (2014). Identifying training modalities to improve multitasking in older adults. Age, 36(4), 9688.</ref>, as it becomes easier to successfully implement more than one task at a time if these are very familiar. Enhancing the divided attention abilities of children early enough will enable them to have optimized cognitive skills as they are growing up. The technological objective of this line of our research is to develop a new game-based assessment module to assess the divided attention ability, thus adding a leap-forward test that responds to one of the greatest challenges of today’s generation. | ‘Multitasking’ or ‘divided attention’ is the ability of a person to perform tasks that require different cognitive functions simultaneously. While we want children to be able to focus on whatever they are learning (or doing), technology also imposes situations where they need to be able to perform multitasking. Research indicates that the brain’s ability for multitasking is rather limited, but can be improved with practice <ref>Watson, J. M., & Strayer, D. L. (2010). Supertaskers: Profiles in extraordinary multitasking ability. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 17(4), 479-485.</ref>, <ref>Bier, B., de Boysson, C., & Belleville, S. (2014). Identifying training modalities to improve multitasking in older adults. Age, 36(4), 9688.</ref>, as it becomes easier to successfully implement more than one task at a time if these are very familiar. Enhancing the divided attention abilities of children early enough will enable them to have optimized cognitive skills as they are growing up. The technological objective of this line of our research is to develop a new game-based assessment module to assess the divided attention ability, thus adding a leap-forward test that responds to one of the greatest challenges of today’s generation. | ||
====Reaffirm language independency in diverse language/cultural environments==== | ====Reaffirm language independency in diverse language/cultural environments==== | ||
[[File:Globe_w_Kids.png|150px]] | [[File:Globe_w_Kids.png|left|150px]] | ||