Multitask Analysis

Abstract—Although technology is successfully being used these days as a tool to improve education at all levels, its improper usage is curbing the imagination of the student community, leading to a diminution in their thinking capacity and ability to focus and concentrate. As attention is a vital cognitive feature of any learning process, students these days are not coping well with this process. This study attempts to analyse the focusing capacity of students from two different backgrounds; students who have undergone training in mental arithmetic and usage of the abacus and students without any formal mental arithmetic training. The analysis is done through a simple EEG (Electroencephalogram) based gaming software , which measures the time

Multitasking can be defined as the attempt to perform two or more tasks simultaneously. Research shows that when multitasking, people make more mistakes or perform their tasks slowly [27] as attention must be divided among all the components of the task to perform them. Research also shows that multitasking affects the way of human thinking, learning, retention, and other information processing acts [25]. B. Abacus Though its uses have ceased considerably in this computer age, it has still been a popular tool which bestows the users, the power of both manipulating the tool in its physical as well as mental form. This can involve calculations which frequently take 10 digits with significant speeds and precision [12]. This is accomplished by the finger movements in the initial stages which are replaced by mental calculations in the later levels of training. This is followed by the amalgamation of several cognitive features like momentary storage of transitional data, number identification, and quick manipulation. It is found that abacus experts possess higher levels of attention which is vital to achieve

The non abacus practitioners were asked to play a simple BCI game developed using OpenGl (Open Graphics Library)-an Application Program Interface (API) for rendering 2D/3D graphics. Fig. 2 shows a snapshot of the BCI game developed for this purpose. The user had to move a sphere from source to destination and the movement was based upon the attention values. A few numbers of intervening random figures were used to distract the user and curb his attention and add to the difficulty level of the game. The lighting, shading and material properties were randomized to facilitate this. In both the cases, subject’s brain data was captured using Neurosky Mindwave Mobile EEG [13]. A. Hardware and software details The device used is a single channel acquisition, wireless EEG, with the sensor capturing the waveforms safely from the frontal cortex region. The device uses dry sensor technology. Software named ThinkGear Connector (TGC) is used to connect the EEG to the computer and the data transfer takes place through the Bluetooth device. TGC runs as a background process and directs the data from the headset to an open network socket from the serial