Call Me Maybe: Effects of Notification Modality on Visual Sustained Attention

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Smartphone notifications are known to impair sustained attention.
• Previous research indicates deficits in sustained attention performance when notifications are received during tasks.
• The Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) is a common tool for measuring sustained attention.

Purpose of the Study:

• To re-examine the impact of smartphone notifications on sustained attention.
• To differentiate the individual effects of audio versus visual notifications.
• To investigate how notifications influence reaction times and error rates during the SART.

Main Methods:

• Participants completed the SART under fixed and random conditions.
• Visual pop-up notifications were presented during half of the trials.
• Auditory notifications were presented during the other half of the trials.

Main Results:

• Notifications significantly impacted overall sustained attention performance.
• Visual notifications resulted in a higher error rate compared to auditory notifications.
• Both notification types led to slower reaction times.

Conclusions:

• Smartphone notifications, particularly visual ones, negatively affect sustained attention.
• The modality of the notification (visual vs. auditory) influences the degree of performance impairment.
• Further research is needed to understand the mechanisms behind these attentional deficits.