Independence of Performance and Self-Report Measures of Distractibility

Abstract

Abstract Individual differences in susceptibility to distraction are commonly measured by performance or self-report. High performance measures of distractibility have previously been linked to low cognitive ability, whereas self-reports have been linked to the general personality dimension of neuroticism. In the present study, distractibility was measured as decrements in task performance under visual and auditory distraction. The self-report measure consisted of a series of face-valid questions concerning responsiveness to extraneous or irrelevant stimuli in the auditory and visual domains. Results showed that the visual and auditory performance measures of distractibility were highly correlated, the self-reports of distractibility were also correlated with each other and were linked to neuroticism, and the performance and self-report measures of distractibility were completely independent.