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Cognitive consequences of asymmetrical visual distraction.
Benjamin C Storm1, Arturo E Hernandez
1Psychology Department, University of California, Los Angeles, 90095, USA. storm@ucla.edu
The Journal of General Psychology
|January 11, 2008
Summary
Visual distraction impacts cognitive tasks based on brain hemisphere. Distraction in the same hemisphere as a cognitive task impairs performance, revealing interhemispheric competition in visual processing and cognition.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Visual Perception
- Hemispheric Specialization
Background:
- Cognitive tasks can be lateralized to specific brain hemispheres.
- Visual distraction can interfere with ongoing cognitive processes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how the location of visual distraction influences cognitive task performance.
- To determine if visual distraction competes more with cognitive processes in the same or opposite brain hemisphere.
Main Methods:
- Participants completed verbal memory and spatial tasks.
- Visual distraction was presented in either the left or right visual field.
- Performance was measured by recall accuracy and task completion.
Main Results:
- Verbal memory task performance was better when distraction was in the left visual field (right hemisphere).
- This effect reversed for a spatial task, indicating better performance with distraction in the right visual field (left hemisphere).
Conclusions:
- Visual distraction in the same hemisphere as a cognitive task leads to greater performance impairment.
- This supports the hypothesis of interhemispheric competition between visual distraction and cognitive processing.
