TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2015//
TI  - Establishing the attention-distractibility trait
JO  - Psychological science
A1  - Forster, Sophie
A1  - Lavie, Nilli
SP  - 203
EP  - 212
VL  - 27
IS  - 2
N2  - 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>
LA  - en
SN  - 0956-7976
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797615617761
ID  - ref1
ER  -