An empirical investigation of distraction by unexpected auditory and vibratiory stimuli

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Title [sv]

En empirisk studie om hur distraktion orsakas av oväntade auditiva och vibrerande stimuli

Title [en]

An empirical investigation of distraction by unexpected auditory and vibratiory stimuli

Abstract [sv]

The involuntary detection of novel stimuli in our environment is an essential cognitive function guiding the orientation of our attention toward potentially important stimuli. This ineluctable orienting of attention comes at a cost, however, in the form of a temporary disruption of ongoing performance, that is, by distracting us away from what we are doing. The impact of rare distracters on performance (novelty distraction) has so far been studied with auditory stimuli, but the phenomenon remains poorly accounted for at the theoretical level. More critically, there has been no systematic research aiming to establish whether novelty distraction may obey general principles in modalities other than auditory. Yet some work, including our recent finding of the effect in the tactile modality, suggests that such general principles may exist. Our program of work, comprising 19 experiments to be administered to human participants, is carefully designed to provide the first systematic empirical study of novelty distraction by auditory and vibro-tactile stimuli. We plan to systematically investigate seven distinct key functional characteristics and identify for the first time general theoretical principles applying to novelty distraction irrespective of sensory modality, and, doing so, challenge some commonly accepted views about novelty distraction emanating from past auditory studies.