Re:Context switching costs more than we give it credit for
by civilized on Sunday January 17, 2021 @10:29PM
(#25817776)
I was very curious to find more info on the constant number study. So far I found this older HN post, which is itself quoting from an apparently famous book, which according to some replies was BSing the whole thing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1995239
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Re:Context switching costs more than we give it credit for
by nulbyte on Sunday January 17, 2021 @11:29PM
(#25818163)
I couldn't find anything on a study at Cornell University, but I did find mention of a study at the University of Windsor that included 72 students in three groups: a control group, a group that listened to music before, and a group that listened to music before and during.
The results[2] are published in an article behind a paywall, but they give details of the two tasks presented to the subjects, neither of which involved actually writing code. One was a 15-minute task of locating syntax errors, another was a 20-minute task of locating logic errors.
[1]: https://www.gwern.net/docs/music-distraction/2005-lesiuk.pdf [2]: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08874417.2000.11...