External Distraction and Attentional Narrowing: Visual Search Evidence

Abstract

We examined distraction and attentional narrowing in a dual-task auto-racing simulation. Participants were randomly assigned to six groups: distraction control, distraction anxiety, relevant control, relevant anxiety, central control, and central anxiety. Those in central conditions performed a driving task; the other four groups identified peripheral lights in addition to driving. Irrelevant peripheral lights were included in distraction conditions. Participants in anxiety conditions were exposed to increasing levels of anxiety via a time-to-event paradigm. In 3 sessions of 20 trials, measures of cognitive anxiety, arousal. visual search patterns, and performance were recorded. At higher levels of anxiety, the identification of peripheral lights became slower and less accurate. and significant performance decrements occurred in central and peripheral tasks. Furthermore, visual search patterns were more eccentric in the distraction anxiety group. Results suggest that drivers who are highly anxious experience an altered ability to acquire peripheral information at the perceptual level.

Emotionally involving telephone conversations lead to driver error and visual tunnelling

“…Conversely, they suggest, when an individual experiences high-arousal negative emotion, sensory processing is reduced and fewer cognitive resources are made available for task completion (see Friedman and Förster (2010) for a review of research in this area). Janelle, Singer, and Williams (1999) support this view with findings from their simulator study. They found that high anxiety 'drivers' demonstrated visual tunnelling (a narrowing of their visual attention, measured by tracking eye movements) but paradoxically also showed a greater tendency to be distracted by irrelevant cues in peripheral vision than did non-anxious participants.…”

“…Such results are consistent with the findings of Nunes and Recarte (2002) and Harbluk and Noy (2002) who both found that with increased CWL came a decrease in the number and range of visual fixations made, with a tendency to focus attention on the central visual field rather than the peripheral fields. In contrast to Janelle et al (1999) this investigation did not find scan patterns consistent with the notion that, in the face of a distractor, highly anxious individuals shift their attention entirely to the peripheral fields to take in information. In contrast, participants' scan patterns suggest that a small area in the central field was selected for most visual processing.…”

“…Non-anxious participants did not demonstrate such a shift in gaze pattern. Janelle et al (1999) claim that this shows that the experience of anxiety brings about hyperdistractibility. Murray and Janelle (2003) confirmed these effects of anxiety on visual attention.…”

Effects of anxiety on anticipation and visual search in dynamic, time-constrained situations.

“…The theory assumes that increased anxiety disrupts the balance between the two attentional systems and leads to increased influences of the stimulusdriven attentional system at the expense of the goal-directed attentional system. Anxious individuals have been found to attend to threatrelated stimuli (Eysenck et al, 2007), showing that attention will first be allocated to detect the threat and then to identify a strategy on how to respond, leading to longer response times for the task at hand (Janelle, Singer, & Williams, 1999). As threat-related stimuli are processed first, the inhibition function of the goal-directed attentional system (usually guided by expectations, knowledge, and current goals of the anxious person) is less able to inhibit task irrelevant stimuli (Eysenck et al, 2007).…”

Efeitos de estresse e treino na latência e acurácia de respostas motoras a estímulos visuais.

“…Some studies on visual search behaviour under pressure corroborated this theory (Janelle, Singer, 1999;Williams, Elliott, 1999;Williams et al, 2002b;Wilson et al, 2006).…”