Abstract
Abstract The effects of distraction on cognitive performance were examined in a series of experiments. Several factors were found to influence the extent of any distraction effect, including the complexity of the main task (defined in various ways), the relationship between the distracting stimuli and the task stimuli, and the stage of practice. Of particular importance was the consistent finding that distraction effects were interactively determined by task complexity and by the similarity between task and distracting stimuli, with similarity affecting distraction only at moderate and high levels of task complexity. The results were interpreted in terms of a theoretical account which emphasised the notion that resisting distraction requires processing resources, and that distraction effects therefore depend on the total processing demands of the task situation.
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