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Telephone conversation impairs sustained visual attention via a central bottleneck

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Kunar, Melina A., Carter, Randall, Cohen, Michael and Horowitz , Todd S.. (2008) Telephone conversation impairs sustained visual attention via a central bottleneck. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, Vol.15 (No.6). pp. 1135-1140. ISSN 1069-9384

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/PBR.15.6.1135

Abstract

Recent research has shown that holding telephone conversations disrupts one's driving ability. We asked whether this effect could be attributed to a visual attention impairment. In Experiment 1, participants conversed on a telephone or listened to a narrative while engaged in multiple object tracking (MOT), a task requiring sustained visual attention. We found that MOT was disrupted in the telephone conversation condition, relative to single-task MOT performance, but that listening to a narrative had no effect. In Experiment 2, we asked which component of conversation might be interfering with MOT performance. We replicated the conversation and single-task conditions of Experiment 1 and added two conditions in which participants heard a sequence of words over a telephone. In the shadowing condition, participants simply repeated each word in the sequence. In the generation condition, participants were asked to generate a new word based on each word in the sequence. Word generation interfered with MOT performance, but shadowing did not. The data indicate that telephone conversation disrupts attention at a central stage, the act of generating verbal stimuli, rather than at a peripheral stage, such as listening or speaking.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Divisions:	Faculty of Science > Psychology
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Visual perception, Oral communication, Cellular telephone systems, Automobile driving
Journal or Publication Title:	Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
Publisher:	Psychonomic Society, Inc.
ISSN:	1069-9384
Date:	2008
Volume:	Vol.15
Number:	No.6
Page Range:	pp. 1135-1140
Identification Number:	10.3758/PBR.15.6.1135
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Restricted or Subscription Access
Funder:	National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (NIH), Harvard Medical School Office for Diversity and Community Partnership, Gustavus and Louise Pfeiffer Research Foundation
Grant number:	MH 65576 (NIH), Project Success (Harvard)
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URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/452