Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London London, UK.
Front Psychol. 2013 May 22;4:283. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00283. eCollection 2013.
Attention research over the last several decades has provided rich insights into the determinants of distraction, including distractor characteristics, task features, and individual differences. Load Theory represented a particularly important breakthrough, highlighting the critical role of the level and nature of task-load in determining both the efficiency of distractor rejection and the stage of processing at which this occurs. However, until recently studies of distraction were restricted to those measuring rather specific forms of distraction by external stimuli which I argue that, although intended to be irrelevant, were in fact task-relevant. In daily life, attention may be distracted by a wide range of stimuli, which may often be entirely unrelated to any task being performed, and may include not only external stimuli but also internally generated stimuli such as task-unrelated thoughts. This review outlines recent research examining these more general, entirely task-irrelevant, forms of distraction within the framework of Load Theory. I discuss the relation between different forms of distraction, and the universality of load effects across different distractor types and individuals.
在过去几十年的研究中，注意力已经为分心的决定因素提供了丰富的见解，包括分心物的特征、任务特征和个体差异。负载理论是一个特别重要的突破，强调了任务负荷的水平和性质在确定分心物的排斥效率和发生的处理阶段方面的关键作用。然而，直到最近，分心的研究才仅限于那些通过外部刺激来衡量相当具体形式的分心，我认为，尽管这些刺激被认为是不相关的，但实际上它们与任务相关。在日常生活中，注意力可能会被各种各样的刺激分散，这些刺激可能与正在进行的任何任务都没有关系，而且不仅包括外部刺激，还包括内部产生的刺激，如与任务无关的想法。本综述概述了最近在负载理论框架内研究这些更一般、完全与任务无关的分心形式的研究。我讨论了不同形式的分心之间的关系，以及不同分心类型和个体之间的负载效应的普遍性。
