Emerging perspectives on distraction and task interruptions: metacognition, cognitive control and facilitation - part I

Modern technology allows for the control of learning and work environments to an unprecedented degree. Therefore, the focus of research shifts from how learning and work performance are passively affected by environmental factors to how people actively shape their own learning and work experiences. This includes task-irrelevant stimuli and task interruptions. For instance, modern headphones allow one to switch between two modes: Active noise cancelling eliminates all background sounds while acoustic transparency allows certain signals to pass through the headphones, creating a customisable audio space. Modern devices also allow us to plan certain task interruptions (for example, by email alerts) in advance. This gives users unprecedented autonomy over their learning and work environments. However, increased control does not necessarily imply that these environments are free of distraction and interruptions. In fact, quite the opposite is true: Modern-day digital learning and work environments are full of distractions and interruptions. With users’ increased control over their learning and work environments, new research questions arise that emphasise the active role of the individual in shaping their own learning and work experiences: Are people capable of distinguishing between harmful and helpful task-irrelevant stimuli and activities? Can the harmful aspects of distractions and interruptions be brought under cognitive control? Are distraction and task interruptions always harmful or are they sometimes helpful? Within this Special Issue, we primarily focus on the following emerging trends in distraction and attention

We don't know what you did last summer. On the importance of transparent reporting of reaction time data pre-processing

In behavioral, cognitive, and social sciences, reaction time measures are an important source of information. However, analyses on reaction time data are affected by researchers' analytical choices and the order in which these choices are applied. The results of a systematic literature review, presented in this paper, revealed that the justification for and order in which analytical choices are conducted are rarely reported, leading to difficulty in reproducing results and interpreting mixed findings. To address this methodological shortcoming, we created a checklist on reporting reaction time pre-processing to make these decisions more explicit, improve transparency, and thus, promote best practices within the field. The importance of the pre-processing checklist was additionally supported by an expert consensus survey and a multiverse analysis. Consequently, we appeal for maximal transparency on all methods applied and offer a checklist to improve replicability and reproducibility of studies that use reaction time measures

Registered replication report on Fischer, Castel, Dodd, and Pratt (2003)

The attentional spatial-numerical association of response codes (Att-SNARC) effect (Fischer, Castel, Dodd, & Pratt, 2003)—the finding that participants are quicker to detect left-side targets when the targets are preceded by small numbers and quicker to detect right-side targets when they are preceded by large numbers—has been used as evidence for embodied number representations and to support strong claims about the link between number and space (e.g., a mental number line). We attempted to replicate Experiment 2 of Fischer et al. by collecting data from 1,105 participants at 17 labs. Across all 1,105 participants and four interstimulus-interval conditions, the proportion of times the effect we observed was positive (i.e., directionally consistent with the original effect) was .50. Further, the effects we observed both within and across labs were minuscule and incompatible with those observed by Fischer et al. Given this, we conclude that we failed to replicate the effect reported by Fischer et al. In addition, our analysis of several participant-level moderators (finger-counting habits, reading and writing direction, handedness, and mathematics fluency and mathematics anxiety) revealed no substantial moderating effects. Our results indicate that the Att-SNARC effect cannot be used as evidence to support strong claims about the link between number and space

The replication crisis has led to positive structural, procedural, and community changes

The emergence of large-scale replication projects yielding successful rates substantially lower than expected caused the behavioural, cognitive, and social sciences to experience a so-called ‘replication crisis’. In this Perspective, we reframe this ‘crisis’ through the lens of a credibility revolution, focusing on positive structural, procedural and community-driven changes. Second, we outline a path to expand ongoing advances and improvements. The credibility revolution has been an impetus to several substantive changes which will have a positive, long-term impact on our research environment

Validation of the Short Version (TLS-15) of the Triangular Love Scale (TLS-45) Across 37 Languages

Love is a phenomenon that occurs across the world and affects many aspects of human life, including the choice of, and process of bonding with, a romantic partner. Thus, developing a reliable and valid measure of love experiences is crucial. One of the most popular tools to quantify love is Sternberg’s 45-item Triangular Love Scale (TLS-45), which measures three love components: intimacy, passion, and commitment. However, our literature review reveals that most studies (64%) use a broad variety of shortened versions of the TLS-45. Here, aiming to achieve scientific consensus and improve the reliability, comparability, and generalizability of results across studies, we developed a short version of the scale—the TLS-15—comprised of 15 items with 5-point, rather than 9-point, response scales. In Study 1 (N = 7,332), we re-analyzed secondary data from a large-scale multinational study that validated the original TLS-45 to establish whether the scale could be truncated. In Study 2 (N = 307), we provided evidence for the three-factor structure of the TLS-15 and its reliability. Study 3 (N = 413) confirmed convergent validity and test–retest stability of the TLS-15. Study 4 (N = 60,311) presented a large-scale validation across 37 linguistic versions of the TLS-15 on a cross-cultural sample spanning every continent of the globe. The overall results provide support for the reliability, validity, and cross-cultural invariance of the TLS-15, which can be used as a measure of love components—either separately or jointly as a three-factor measure

The psychological science accelerator’s COVID-19 rapid-response dataset

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Psychological Science Accelerator coordinated three large-scale psychological studies to examine the effects of loss-gain framing, cognitive reappraisals, and autonomy framing manipulations on behavioral intentions and affective measures. The data collected (April to October 2020) included specific measures for each experimental study, a general questionnaire examining health prevention behaviors and COVID-19 experience, geographical and cultural context characterization, and demographic information for each participant. Each participant started the study with the same general questions and then was randomized to complete either one longer experiment or two shorter experiments. Data were provided by 73,223 participants with varying completion rates. Participants completed the survey from 111 geopolitical regions in 44 unique languages/dialects. The anonymized dataset described here is provided in both raw and processed formats to facilitate re-use and further analyses. The dataset offers secondary analytic opportunities to explore coping, framing, and self-determination across a diverse, global sample obtained at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be merged with other time-sampled or geographic data

Addressing climate change with behavioral science: a global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions’ effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior—several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people’s initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors