What If Multitasking Is Learnable?

Multitasking is a myth, at least that is what a lot of research has said. Even the local Medical University here in Winston-Salem (Wake Forest) has said as much.

However, a new study from Georgetown University suggests the brain may be better at multitasking than many experts once thought.

For years, the common idea has been that people do not really do two things at once.

Instead, the brain rapidly switches back and forth between tasks. That is often true. Anyone who has tried to text while driving knows the problem. The brain is not like a computer with multiple tabs open.

But this new study points to something more interesting.

How People Can Actually Multitask

According to the researchers, there is a way to get better at multitasking.

That is, with enough practice, the brain may be able to move a well-learned skill into different circuits, so the task takes less conscious effort. That frees up the part of the brain used for deliberate thinking.

The Georgetown researchers looked at how people learn over time, not just at the beginning of a new skill.

The reason this matters is that many studies focus on early learning, when the brain is still working hard to figure things out.

Of course, everyday life is different.

Many important skills take weeks, months, or years to become second nature.

Driving is a simple example. At first, a new driver has to think about everything. Steering. Braking. Mirrors. Speed. Lane position. It is mentally exhausting. Years later, many people can drive while talking or listening to music.

Does that mean every kind of multitasking is safe? No, not necessarily. But it does raise a real question… “What changes in the brain when something becomes automatic?” 

To study this, participants learned to sort morphed car images into two groups based on small visual differences. They practiced through a phone app over 5 to 10 weeks and completed more than 30,000 trials.

The researchers scanned their brains using fMRI and EEG before and after training.

Early on, the task used the prefrontal cortex. That part of the brain helps with executive function, focus, and deliberate decision-making. It is important, but it has limits. It can only handle so much at once.

After weeks of practice, the task shifted. Brain scans showed greater involvement in the temporal cortex, a region associated with memory and the recognition of complex objects. The researchers found that the brain seemed to build a new area of expertise there.

The skill did not just get easier because people “tried harder.” Their brain activity changed. The trained task appeared to bypass the usual frontal bottleneck, leaving the prefrontal cortex more available for something else.

Researchers also found that participants performed better on another task while doing the car-sorting task when more of the sorting process was moved out of the prefrontal cortex.

That gives some support to the idea of true multitasking, at least under certain conditions.

The real-world implications are easy to see. A radiologist, for example, may learn to recognize patterns on an X-ray with far less conscious effort after years of experience. A musician, athlete, surgeon, mechanic, or driver may all rely on deeply practiced skills that no longer require the same level of mental strain.

This may also help explain why habits can be so hard to break.

Once a behavior becomes deeply learned, it may shift into brain systems that are less available to conscious control. That could be part of why simply telling someone to “just stop” or “think about something else” often fails.

The study may also be relevant to artificial intelligence.

Humans are very good at building new skills on top of older ones. AI systems still struggle with that in important ways. Understanding how the brain maps learned skills onto new neural circuits may help researchers design systems that learn more flexibly.

There are still limits. The researchers are not saying people can safely multitask in every situation. Some tasks compete for the same attention, vision, or decision-making resources. Texting while driving is still dangerous because it takes your eyes and attention off the road.

The better takeaway is this: practice does not just make people faster. It may change where the work is happening in the brain.

And that could help explain why some skills eventually feel almost automatic.