Results

Here's what we found out:

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Round 1: The number of completed boxes should be high (24 would be the maximum score) since this was an easy task. Participants were not asked to switch.

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Round 2: scores should be lower because when you switched back and forth from writing letters to writing numbers, you experienced what researchers call "attentional blink". In other words, your brain had to "switch rulesets" (in this case, thinking about letters to thinking about numbers ) and for a brief moment your brain wasn't able to process anything.

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Bottom line: while you can "multi-switch", there are costs. Multi-switching while you work slows you down.