Journal article
Active Listening Delays Attentional Disengagement and Saccadic Eye Movements
Psychonomic bulletin & review, Vol.25(3), pp.1021-1027
06/2018
DOI: 10.3758/s13423-017-1310-z
PMID: 28537005
Abstract
Successful goal-directed visual behavior depends on efficient disengagement of attention. Attention must be withdrawn from its current focus before being redeployed to a new object or internal process. Previous research has demonstrated that occupying cognitive processes with a secondary cellular phone conversation impairs attentional functioning and driving behavior. For example, attentional processing is significantly impacted by concurrent cell phone use, resulting in decreased explicit memory for on-road information. Here, we examined the impact of a critical component of cell-phone use—active listening—on the effectiveness of attentional disengagement. In the gap task—a saccadic manipulation of attentional disengagement—we measured saccade latencies while participants performed a secondary active listening task. Saccadic latencies significantly increased under an active listening load only when attention needed to be disengaged, indicating that active listening delays a disengagement operation. Simple dual-task interference did not account for the observed results. Rather, active cognitive engagement is required for measurable disengagement slowing to be observed. These results have implications for investigations of attention, gaze behavior, and distracted driving. Secondary tasks such as active listening or cell-phone conversations can have wide-ranging impacts on cognitive functioning, potentially impairing relatively elementary operations of attentional function, including disengagement.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Active Listening Delays Attentional Disengagement and Saccadic Eye Movements
- Creators
- Benjamin Lester - 0000 0000 9662 0001 grid.418983.f Exponent Inc Phoenix AZ USAShaun Vecera - 0000 0004 1936 8294 grid.214572.7 Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences University of Iowa W311 SSH Iowa City IA 52242-1407 USA
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Psychonomic bulletin & review, Vol.25(3), pp.1021-1027
- DOI
- 10.3758/s13423-017-1310-z
- PMID
- 28537005
- NLM abbreviation
- Psychon Bull Rev
- ISSN
- 1069-9384
- eISSN
- 1531-5320
- Publisher
- Springer US; New York
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 06/2018
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
- Record Identifier
- 9984002452202771
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