@article{ref1,
title="Establishing the attention-distractibility trait",
journal="Psychological science",
year="2015",
author="Forster, Sophie and Lavie, Nilli",
volume="27",
number="2",
pages="203-212",
abstract="Failures to focus attention will affect any task engagement (e.g., at work, in the classroom, when driving). At the clinical end, distractibility is a diagnostic criterion of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In this study, we examined whether the inability to maintain attentional focus varies in the overall population in the form of an attention-distractibility trait. To test this idea, we administered an ADHD diagnostic tool to a sample of healthy participants and assessed the relationship between ADHD symptoms and task distraction. ADHD symptom summary scores were significantly positively associated with distractor interference in letter-search and name-classification tasks (as measured by reaction time), as long as the distractors were irrelevant (cartoon images) rather than relevant (i.e., compatible or incompatible with target names). Higher perceptual load during a task eliminated distraction irrespective of ADHD score. These findings suggest the existence of an attention-distractibility trait that confers vulnerability to irrelevant distraction, which can be remedied by increasing the level of perceptual load during the task.   Keywords: Driver distraction;<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0956-7976",
doi="10.1177/0956797615617761",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797615617761"
}