School of Psychology

The effects of distractors on accuracy and speed across different levels of mathematical ability

Researcher     Christoffer Asbjornsen

Supervisors      Dr Natalie Jackson

Date:                October, 2009
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Previous research on the load theory of selective attention and cognitive control has focused on tasks that require information to be stored but not manipulated in the working memory. This study examined selective attention in mathematical problem-solving tasks, which required information to be manipulated in order to be solved (e.g., by performing carrying operations). Working memory load was manipulated by varying problem difficulty (i.e., easy versus difficult problems), and mathematical ability was included as an independent variable. It was hypothesized that people with greater mathematical abilities would be less distracted when mentally solving multiplication problems, compared to people with lower mathematical abilities. Additionally, it was hypothesized that people would be more distracted on difficult multiplication problems compared to easy multiplication problems. A flanking-compatibility paradigm was employed with a multiplication problem as the prime. The distractors were either response compatible, incompatible, or neutral. The participants (N = 32) were required to make true/false judgments as to whether a target was the correct solution to the multiplication problem. Results of reaction times and accuracy did not reveal any significant differences in distractor interference from the response incompatible distractors between people with high and low mathematical ability, or between easy and difficult problem. The findings from the present research indicate that selective attention is affected by the degree to which information in the working memory is manipulated.