Across two studies, we explored whether framing an assignment as involving either multitasking or single-tasking (Srna et al. Psychol Sci 29(12):1942–1955, 2018) leads to differences in both subjective ratings of attentional engagement (i.e., depth of concentration and attentional control) and performance during the assignment. In Experiment 1, we manipulated task framing in the context of an assignment in which participants (N_collected = 238) simultaneously completed a word-search and an anagram task (Srna et al. Psychol Sci 29(12):1942–1955, 2018). While we replicated prior findings that participants who receive multitasking instructions perform better than those who receive single-tasking instructions, we did not find any influence of task framing on participants’ subjective evaluations of their attentional engagement. Exploratory analyses, however, revealed that regardless of group assignment, those who believed they were multitasking reported greater levels of attentional engagement than those who believed they were single-tasking. In Experiment 2 (N_collected = 238), task framing was varied in the context of the 2-back task (Kirchner J Exp Psychol 55(4): 352, 1958). Unexpectedly, we found that, relative to participants who received single-tasking instructions, those who received multitasking instructions reported exerting less attentional control over their thoughts and showed a greater number of incorrect responses to non-target trials on the 2-back. Taken together, the results do not support a straightforward conclusion regarding the influence of task framing on either subjective reports of attentional engagement or task performance. Nevertheless, they provide insight into our understanding of the role of task framing in contexts ranging from commonly performed real-world tasks to typical laboratory tasks.

在两项研究中，我们探讨了将一项任务定义为涉及多任务处理还是单任务处理 (Srna et al. Psychol Sci 29(12):1942–1955, 2018) 是否会导致注意力参与的主观评分（即深度注意力和注意力控制）和作业期间的表现。在实验 1 中，我们在参与者 ( N_收集 = 238) 同时完成了单词搜索和变位词任务 (Srna et al. Psychol Sci 29(12):1942–1955, 2018)。虽然我们复制了先前的发现，即接受多任务处理指令的参与者比接受单任务处理指令的参与者表现更好，但我们没有发现任务框架对参与者对其注意力参与的主观评价有任何影响。然而，探索性分析显示，无论小组分配如何，那些认为自己在处理多项任务的人比那些认为自己在处理单一任务的人报告的注意力参与度更高。在实验 2 ( N_收集 = 238)，任务框架在 2-back 任务的背景下发生变化 (Kirchner J Exp Psychol 55(4): 352, 1958)。出乎意料的是，我们发现，相对于接受单任务指令的参与者，接受多任务指令的参与者报告说他们对思想的注意力控制较少，并且对 2-back 的非目标试验表现出更多的错误反应。总的来说，结果不支持关于任务框架对注意力参与或任务绩效的主观报告的影响的直接结论。然而，它们提供了我们对任务框架在从通常执行的现实世界任务到典型实验室任务的上下文中的作用的理解。