Non-spatial contingent capture, working memory and selective attention.

For all of us, everyday tasks are susceptible to distraction. Although it may be a pleasant break from the task at hand, distraction can result in some disturbing statistics. It is estimated that employees waste approximately two hours a day engaging in non-work related behaviours such as, sending personal emails, accessing Facebook, „surfing‟ the web or communicating on mobile phones. Even more alarming, 66% of motor vehicle accidents are related to distracted drivers, most of which could be easily avoided. Distraction can occur as a result of capturing spatial as well as cognitive attention. Although spatial capture has been the focus of research, within the past fifteen years non-spatial contingent capture has been more widely researched. It has been suggested that memory could modulate selective attention through non-spatial contingent capture, where distraction can occur without the diversion of gaze when searching for a target amongst distractors. Non-spatial contingent capture and the relationship between selective attention and working memory has been suggested to be linked, however adequate research into this is yet to be conducted. To assess this, two experiments were conducted where working memory was manipulated to create a high and low memory load condition and observe how these relate to selective attention in the presence of high and low similarity distractors. These results support two-stage models of bottleneck theories of Attentional Blink (AB). Highlight the importance of distractor similarity to target identification and processing. Provide evidence to suggest that neural mechanisms located in the prefrontal cortex are important in establishing and maintaining Attentional Control Settings (ACS) as instantiated by input filters and working memory. The practical implications of this research could be used in safe driver awareness programs and to increase productivity in organisational settings