Researchers at Cardiff University conducted a series of experiments to examine the relation between task difficulty and focal ability. The results can be summarised as below:
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The disruptive effect of a single deviant within a task-unrelated auditory sequence on a visually presented focal task (serial recall) was attenuated when the difficulty of encoding the visual task-relevant stimuli was increased by reducing their perceptual discriminability
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A shared identity for the effects of high task-difficulty and foreknowledge as ones related to top-down task-engagement, contrary to the view that the impact of the former may have arisen due to high perceptual load, and hence constitute a bottom-up form of distraction-control
Any thing that beeps, buzzes, vibrates, flashes, bounces, or otherwise tries to actively draw your attention. This type of distraction is extremely dangerous as it can be highly addictive. The audible ding and flashing notification can cause a small endorphin release in your brain giving a pleasurable sensation. The act of receiving and checking a notification feels good, seems harmless, and is very simple to do.
This can include heating and lighting. If you are too cold or too hot, you are constantly reflecting on how uncomfortable you are. The lighting in an office can create glare, leading to headaches and tired eyes, causing you to stop frequently.
Researchers at the University go Southern Maine found that people are distracted by mobile phone even when we aren’t using it.
Lead author Bill Thornton, a social psychologist at the University of Southern Maine said that the “constant connectivity” afforded by mobile technology has contributed to a preoccupation with the cell phone, an overwhelming majority of users check their phone upon waking and right before bed time, and such behaviour is a typical of “behavioural addiction” and “diminishes our ability to maintain attention”.
A 2009 study by Stanford University, “Cognitive Control in Media Multitaskers,” used experiments to compare heavy media multi-taskers to light media multi-taskers in terms of their cognitive control and ability to process information. Through the experiments, they found that:
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When intentionally distracting elements were added to experiments, heavy media multi-taskers were on average 77 milliseconds slower than their counterparts at identifying changes in patterns.
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In a longer-term memory test that invited participants to recall specific elements from earlier experiments, the high media multi-taskers more often falsely identified the elements that had been used most frequently as intentional distracters.
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In the presence of distracting elements, high media multi-taskers were 426 milliseconds slower than their counterparts to switch to new activities and 259 milliseconds slower to engage in a new section of the same activity.