Selectively Distracted: Divided Attention and Memory for Important Information.

ABSTRACT: Distractions and multitasking are generally detrimental to learning and memory. Nevertheless, people often study while listening to music, sitting in noisy coffee shops, or intermittently checking their e-mail. The current experiments examined how distractions and divided attention influence one's ability to selectively remember valuable information. Participants studied lists of words that ranged in value from 1 to 10 points while completing a digit-detection task, while listening to music, or without distractions. Though participants recalled fewer words following digit detection than in the other conditions, there were no significant differences between conditions in terms of selectively remembering the most valuable words. Similar results were obtained across a variety of divided-atten

SUBMITTER: Middlebrooks CD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5546942 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature