Understanding multitasking as an adaptive strategy selection process

The promotion of mobile devices within the field of HCI makes it necessary to better understand how these devices are used in multitasking contexts, so as to prevent accidents. In these contexts, users must choose how to allocate their attention to the tasks that they are engaged in. Using computational cognitive models, I demonstrate why users interleave tasks in particular patterns: to comply with priority objectives and to optimize performance. In future work, I will investigate how users learn to perform in optimum ways, so as to be able to predict performance during a first encounter with novel situations and interfaces.