Cognitive Consequences of Asymmetrical Visual Distraction

Abstract

The authors explored whether manipulating the location of distraction in the participants' visual field influences the degree of competition between visual and other cognitive processes. If a cognitive task is lateralized to a particular hemisphere, visual distraction directed toward that same hemisphere should impair performance on that task more than should visual distraction directed toward the other hemisphere. Consistent with this hypothesis, the authors found in Experiments 1 and 2 that participants better recalled words of high imageability in a verbal memory task when the examiner was in the participant's left visual field (right hemisphere) than when the examiner was in the participant's right visual field (left hemisphere). In Experiment 3, the authors found that this effect reversed for performance on a right-hemisphere spatial task.

The Influence of Visual Distraction on Awareness Test

“…That is, eye movements provide controlled access to objects in the visual world. Correspondingly, eye movements are also capable to remove access to objects in the visual world (Storm & Hernandez, 2007). Lambert and Hockey (1986) also viewed the attention in a similar way.…”

“…Many researchers have explored this topic in various ways. Storm and Hernandez (2007) viewed attention from a cognitive perspective. They were particularly interested in eye movements because "eye movements determine what individual can see"; whether the object in front of an individual is a ball, a pencil, or anything else, they all require attention in order to be seen.…”