test, taking about 20 minutes at most to rate all 400 figures. What
the researchers discovered were radical differences in design pre-
ferences for low and high sensation-seekers. Low sensation-seekers
tend to like figures that are symmetrical and simple and high
sensation-seekers like complex, asymmetrical figures that are
“sketchy and shady.” The Welsh Figure Preference Test so consis-
tently predicts high and low sensation-seeking that it could almost
be used as a test for sensation-seeking.^16 Unfortunately, these pre-
ferences for complex shapes doesn’t always predict preferences for
art, painting, and design. Osborne and Farley, for example, had
groups of art and educational psychology students sort cards featur-
ing reproductions of famous paintings by how much they liked the
paintings. Preference for highly complex painting was not related
to sensation-seeking for art.^17Multitasking and Sensation-Seeking
As a psychology professor, I try not to dwell on what my students
are doing during class, lest they think I’m psychoanalyzing them.
Yet, despite my desire to ignore their behavior, I’m fascinated by
what they’re doing when I occasionally wander among them while
I’m lecturing. Many look as if they are suppressing terror – as if I’ve
emerged from a horror film, like the creepy zombie girl inThe Ring –
and I can see why. Some are innocently taking notes in a notebook.
Others, however, are clearly not focused only on the lecture: their
desks hold a notebook, a chemistry textbook, a computer with five
or six windows open, and their phone for texting. “I’m multitask-
ing,” one student explained with an embarrassed look when
I caught him amid a Netflix binge.
Many people call it multitasking, but I’ve always referred to
it as “multi-slacking.” Despite the fact that so many feel compelled
to do several things at once, we aren’t very good at it. Computers
can expertly multitask – even my phone is capable of 600 billion
operations per second. But people can only multi-slack, doing sev-
eral things poorly, rather than doing just one thing well. Research
suggests that sensation-seeking might be involved in the desire to
multitask, just as it is in a number of other cognitive habits.
Researchers have found that when people engage in multi-
tasking, it is often because they have difficulty blocking out
distractions.^18 However, this isn’t the only reason sensation-
seekers multitask. Sensation-seekers actually have a strong54 / Buzz!Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:18:13, subject to the Cambridge