{"title":"Mapping attention across multiple media tasks","authors":"J. T. Fisher, F. R. Hopp, R. Weber","doi":"10.1080/15213269.2022.2161576","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Paying attention to media requires continuously selecting and processing relevant information while filtering out numerous competing stimuli. Although the factors that drive attention toward or away from a single media task are relatively well characterized, there is a lack of understanding regarding how attention to media functions in the presence of multiple, concurrent tasks. In this manuscript, we report findings from four experiments investigating this question. Results indicate that, rather than attention being based on a strict hierarchy between “primary” and “secondary” tasks, attentional resources are distributed across concurrent media tasks based on the (relative) rewardingness and effortfulness of each task. More rewarding tasks elicited more attention, and the attention-capturing influence of rewarding “secondary” tasks was magnified when the “primary” task was more cognitively effortful. These results provide support for recent theoretical advancements in media psychology research and point to promising future directions using updated models of motivated attention to predict the allocation of attentional resources across multiple concurrent tasks.","PeriodicalId":47932,"journal":{"name":"Media Psychology","volume":"26 1","pages":"505 - 529"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2022-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Media Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2022.2161576","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT Paying attention to media requires continuously selecting and processing relevant information while filtering out numerous competing stimuli. Although the factors that drive attention toward or away from a single media task are relatively well characterized, there is a lack of understanding regarding how attention to media functions in the presence of multiple, concurrent tasks. In this manuscript, we report findings from four experiments investigating this question. Results indicate that, rather than attention being based on a strict hierarchy between “primary” and “secondary” tasks, attentional resources are distributed across concurrent media tasks based on the (relative) rewardingness and effortfulness of each task. More rewarding tasks elicited more attention, and the attention-capturing influence of rewarding “secondary” tasks was magnified when the “primary” task was more cognitively effortful. These results provide support for recent theoretical advancements in media psychology research and point to promising future directions using updated models of motivated attention to predict the allocation of attentional resources across multiple concurrent tasks.
期刊介绍:
Media Psychology is an interdisciplinary journal devoted to publishing theoretically-oriented empirical research that is at the intersection of psychology and media communication. These topics include media uses, processes, and effects. Such research is already well represented in mainstream journals in psychology and communication, but its publication is dispersed across many sources. Therefore, scholars working on common issues and problems in various disciplines often cannot fully utilize the contributions of kindred spirits in cognate disciplines.