The Effects of Cell Phone
Distraction on Cognitive
Tasks
Yu Lee, Chanda Atkinson, Danielle Hritsko, Kobe Acquaah
Introduction
 Purpose: To examine the effects of cell phone
distraction on cognitive performance
 Hypotheses:
1. Participants exposed to the cell phone distraction will
make more mistakes on the matching test
2. Participants not exposed to the cell phone distraction will
have more correct responses on the matching test
Impact of auditory distraction on user performance in a braincomputer interface driven by different mental tasks
Elisabeth V.C. Friedrich, Reinhold Schere, Kristina Sonnleitner,
Christa Neuper (2011)
 Purpose: To see if participants can stay focused while using BCI
(imagery-based brain computer-interface that presents mental
tasks) while there are auditory distractions. Also wanted to see
what mental tasks were most affected by auditory distractions
 Participants: 7 men and 7 women (ages of 20-35)
 Procedure: Each person was told to perform a mental task for 7
seconds while staying relaxed and motionless. Tasks included:
word association, mental subtraction, motor imagery and spatial
navigation. There were 3 conditions: no distraction, distraction
passive (told to ignore the sound) distraction active (told to click
a button every time they heard the noise).
 Results: Users achieved higher accuracy in passive condition than
any other condition
Effects of Cell-Phone and Text-Message Distractions on True
and False Recognition
Theodore S. Smith, M.S. Matthew I Isaak, Christian G. Senette,
and Brenton G. Abadie
 Purpose: To inspect the effects that electronic distractions has on true
and false recognition. The distractions came in the form of certain cellphone tasks, and texting.
 The participants of the study were given 24 DRM (Deese-RoedigerMcDermott) lists, each of these lists have words that are categorically
related to each other.
 After the participants finished studying the DRM lists they were given
certain tasks to complete on cellular devices. There was also a control
group in this experiment that only required the participants to study the
words and then recall them to the researcher. The participants that
were required to complete a task while recalling the words had higher
actions of false memory than those who weren’t asked to complete a
task.
 Result- Participants better discriminated true targets when cellphone/text message distractions were absent than when they were
present.
The distracting effects of a ringing cell phone: An
investigation of the laboratory and the classroom setting
Jill T. Shelton, Emily M. Elliott, Sharon D. Eaves, Amanda Exner
 Purpose:
 To understand how students respond to a cell phone ringing in a
classroom setting
 To evaluate how this common noise affects task performance
 Hypothesis: The presence of a ringing cell phone will cause students
to involuntarily orient their attention to the distraction
 Researchers conducted 4 separate experiments, but only 3a and 3b
applied to this study.
Experiment 3a:
Hypothesis: A cell phone ringing would negatively affect students
performance in a college classroom setting
Results: Students were able to remember significantly less information
while the cell phone was ringing
The distracting effects of a ringing cell phone: An
investigation of the laboratory and the classroom setting
(Cont’d)
Experiment 3b:
Hypothesis: A cell phone ringing would negatively effect a
students performance in a college classroom setting
Results: The ringing cell phone disrupted participants memory
recall, but to a lesser extent than in experiment 3a
Suggesting that while a cell phone ringing is distracting, the
behaviors of looking for the cell phone (rustling around through
a backpack) may be a large component of the distraction
 Overall conclusion:
 “Cell phone rings disrupted cognitive performance, and
certain factors affected the level of disruption experienced”
Effects of a cell phone conversation on cognitive processing
performances
Brett E. Kemker, Julie A.G. Stierwalt, Leonard L. Lapointe,
Gary R. Heald
 Purpose: To examine the effects of a cell phone conversation on a
battery of cognitive tests, using both timing (RT) and accuracy (A’)
as dependent measures
 Participants: 42 college-age adult females with normal hearing and
cognitive function
 They were randomly assigned to 2 conditions.
 In (quiet) condition, a standardized cognitive assessment test was given
 In the (cell phone) condition, subjects were formulating and responding
to specific questions about their travel experiences during the same
cognitive assessment
 Results:
 It revealed a significant effect on reaction time between the 2
conditions. It supported the notion that there are differential effects of
auditory distracters across cognitive levels
 Simple to difficult cognitive tasks
Methods
 Participants:
 40 adults (19-57 years old)
 11 males and 29 females
 Convenience sample
 Between Subjects Post-test only design
 IV: Cell phone distraction
 DV:
 Number of correct responses
 Number of mistakes
Procedure
 Participants were randomly assigned using a coin flip
(heads=exp; tails=control)
 Each participant was handed a sheet of paper which had
30 matching problems
 They were given a minute and 30 seconds to complete
the cognitive task
 Participants in the experimental condition heard the
text message alert every 7 seconds while those in the
control heard no distraction
Results
Figure 1. Mean of the number of correct questions by gender
and condition
Discussion
 Results of our study supported our first hypothesis which stated that participants
exposed to cell phone distractions will make more mistakes on the matching test than
participants not exposed
 The study conducted by Shelton et al. (2009) found similar results when testing
memory recall with cell phones as a distracter. When students heard cell phones ring it
negatively effected their memory recall.
 In the study conducted by Smith et al. (2011) Results showed that participants were
better at discriminating between true and false targets when cell phone and text
messages were distractors.
 The study conducted by Kemker et. Al. (2009) showed that there are varying effects of
auditory distracters according to the level of cognitive task given. In consistent to our
study, the matching test was a slightly complex cognitive task, therefore the distracter
did have an affect on their performance level.
 Though the previous studies supported our hypothesis, a study done by Friedrich et al.
(2011) on distraction on cognitive tasks had 3 separate conditions: no distraction,
passive distractions and active distraction. The passive distraction group was more
focused on cognitive tasks than any other group. This shows that though we see noises
as distractions from mental tasks, there a personal discrepancies in how people respond
to different stimuli.
References
 Friedrich E., Scherer R., Sonnleitner K., & Neuper C. (2011). Impact of auditory
distraction on user performance in a brain–computer interface driven by different
mental tasks. Clinical Neuropsychology, 122, 2003-2009.
10.1016/j.clinph.2011.03.019
 Kemker, B., Stierwalt, J., LaPointe, L., & Heald, G.(2009) Effects of a cell phone
conversation on cognitive processing performances. Journal of the American
Academy of Audiology, 20, 582-588. DOI: 10.3766/jaaa.20.9.6
 Shelton, J. T., Elliott, E. M., Eaves, S. D., & Exner, A. L. (2009). The distracting
effects of a ringing cell phone: An investigation of the laboratory and the
classroom setting. Journal Of Environmental Psychology, 29, 513-521.
doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2009.03.001
 Smith, T., Isaak, M., Senette, C.,& Abadie, B. (2011). Effects of cell-phone and
text-message distractions on true and false recognition. Cyberpsychology,
Behavior, and Social Networking, 14, 351-358. DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2010.0129