Two tasks at once: driving and arithmetic, dual tracking, sorting and counting — free
Multitasking games give you two jobs at once — steer while doing sums, track two targets, sort while counting — so you can see and practise divided attention. Every game on this page is free, runs in the browser on a phone or computer, and needs no signup. These games all make the same uncomfortable point. For two tasks that both need attention, humans do not genuinely work in parallel — we alternate, and every switch costs something. What these games measure is the size of your switching cost, and it is usually larger than people expect.
Drive Safe pairs steering between lanes with arithmetic below the road. Both are easy alone; together, the maths collapses first because it is the task you are willing to drop.
Dual Tracker splits visual attention across two separate zones, which is harder than tracking two objects in one field because you cannot cover both with a single gaze.
Memory Reaction pairs holding something with responding quickly, so every reaction is a gap in the rehearsal that was protecting your memory.
Sort & Count pairs categorising with keeping a running total, and the count is what almost everyone loses.
Traffic Control and Multiple Stimuli round out the set with routing and with two-channel sequences.
Each game pairs two tasks that are easy on their own. The table shows the pairing, so you can pick the combination closest to what you find hard in daily life.
| Game | Task 1 | Task 2 | What it loads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drive Safe | Steer between three lanes | Answer arithmetic below the road | Divided attention between a visual-motor task and mental maths |
| Dual Tracker | Follow a target in the left zone | Follow a target in the right zone | Divided visual attention across two fields |
| Memory Reaction | Hold a colour sequence in memory | React quickly to a second task | Working memory under interruption |
| Rhythm Memory | Tap a rhythm | Remember a colour sequence | Motor timing plus memory |
| Sort & Count | Sort items into categories | Keep a running count | Interrupted counting |
| Traffic Control | Route several vehicles | Avoid collisions as traffic grows | Scanning and prioritising |
Step 1 — single task: play Arithmetic 60s and note how many sums you get right in the minute.
Step 2 — dual task: play Drive Safe and count how many of its sums you get right in its sixty seconds while you steer.
Step 3 — work out the cost: (single-task score − dual-task score) ÷ single-task score × 100. Getting 20 sums alone and 12 while driving is a 40% dual-task cost.
Step 4 — repeat on a few different days and watch the percentage, not the raw score. A falling cost is the improvement that practice produces; this is a practice measure, not a clinical or driving assessment.
These games are built for adults and teenagers: the tasks are simple, and the difficulty comes from doing two at once. In a 2013 Nature study (Anguera and colleagues), adults aged 60 to 85 who trained on a custom driving-and-signs multitasking game reduced their multitasking cost, and the gain was still measurable six months later — evidence that this kind of practice changes the trained skill.
There is no two-player mode, but the games work well taken in turns: compare dual-task cost percentages rather than raw scores, which is fairer between players of different speeds.
Genuine parallel processing of two attention-demanding tasks is essentially not something people do. What looks like multitasking is rapid alternation, and the reconfiguration between tasks takes real time.
What improves with practice is the speed of the switch, and, eventually, making one task automatic enough to need no attention at all. That second route is how experienced drivers hold a conversation — the driving has become automatic, not parallel.
This is also why phone use while driving is dangerous in a way hands-free does not fix: the cost is attentional, not manual. Drive Safe demonstrates that in about sixty seconds.
Sequence deliberately rather than trying to be parallel. Do the secondary task in the gaps the primary one leaves.
Decide in advance which task you will drop under pressure, and drop it cleanly rather than degrading both.
Chunk and pre-process. In Sort & Count, counting physically rather than verbally removes the conflict entirely.
Protect the fragile task. Reactions are recoverable; a dropped count or a dropped memory is not.
Games that give you two tasks at the same time — for example steering a car while answering sums — so that you have to split your attention. They measure and train divided attention and task switching.
For two tasks that both require attention, essentially no. We alternate rapidly and the switch costs time. What improves with practice is the switch speed, or making one task automatic.
The extra time and error that come from reconfiguring between two tasks. It is measurable, consistent, and larger than most people assume.
Yes. Play Arithmetic 60s alone, then Drive Safe, and compare the sums you get right in each: (single − dual) ÷ single × 100 is your dual-task cost. It is a practice measure, not a clinical or driving assessment.
Start with Drive Safe — the core mechanic is simple (stay in lane) but the dual-task demand is immediately noticeable. Dual Tracker is excellent for pure visual divided attention.
Practice reliably reduces the cost of doing two specific things at once, especially simple tasks. In a 2013 Nature study older adults who trained on a multitasking game cut their multitasking cost, and the effect lasted six months. Broad transfer to unrelated abilities is much less certain.
They train divided attention — monitoring and responding to two streams of information at once — and they make your own switching cost visible, which is useful when deciding what not to combine, such as phone use while driving.
Yes — free, instant, no signup.
Drive Safe illustrates why divided attention is dangerous. It is not a driving assessment and should not be treated as one.