The distracting effects of a ringing cell phone: An investigation of the laboratory and the classroom setting
Section snippets
Experiment 1
The purpose of Experiment 1 was to track the response to a phone ring over time. This goal was accomplished by making group comparisons in a lexical decision task in which different auditory distracters were heard by some participants but not by others. The trial-level reaction time (RT) measures allowed us to track the time course of distraction effects and to detect potentially subtle differences among the various auditory conditions. During the experimental block of the task, participants
Experiment 2
In the second experiment we explored the hypothesis that anticipation of a ringing cell phone could moderate the disruptive effects. The advantage of prior knowledge for minimizing the detrimental effects of auditory distraction would lend support to the premise that top-down processes influence the time course of the response to distracting sounds. The main objective of the second experiment was to investigate whether the anticipation of an auditory distraction would influence the cost
Experiment 3a
The findings from Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that introducing a phone ring into an experimental setting significantly disrupted performance on laboratory-based cognitive tasks, particularly when people did not anticipate a distracting sound would occur. The survey results from Experiment 1 further suggested that participants were frequently exposed to ringing cell phones in their daily lives and felt that this exposure led to distraction from their ongoing activities. An important
Experiment 3b
The results of Experiment 3a suggested that cell phone rings were disruptive in the classroom setting; however, the results may have been confounded by the presence of a visual distraction. The confederate searched through her bag while the phone was ringing, appearing to try to silence the ring. This may have created a visual distraction effect in addition to any distraction present from the ringing phone. Experiment 3b was conducted to address this issue. Two major changes are noteworthy. The
General discussion
The results of the present research revealed new evidence about the distracting effects of cell phone rings. Although the ringing sound was detrimental to cognitive performance in both the laboratory and real-world settings, the effects were very short lived in the laboratory setting. The brief effects observed in the laboratory (Experiments 1 and 2) were consistent with an attentional orienting explanation (Cowan, 1995), coupled with additional top-down processes. These experiments
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2020, Computers in Human Behavior ReportsCitation Excerpt :While various theories provide explanations for interferences occurring in interacting with the smartphone, explanations for the effects of the mere presence of the device seems less obvious. In accordance with the findings of larger effects on smartphone related tones compared to neutral tones (Shelton, Elliott, Eaves, & Exner, 2009) as well as differences in leaving a notepad or a smartphone next to participants laptop (Ito and Kawahara, 2017), it can be assumed that communication applications, such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, etc., but also email programs, might be responsible for the occurring phenomenon of distraction without physical interaction. Here the concept of fear of missing out might provide an explanation.