The comparison of Inattentional Deafness in smart phones and Laptops

Background and Aim: Inattentional deafness is a common experience in everyday life and refers to the failure to notice auditory stimuli under high load perceptual tasks. Methods: In two experiments, a modified version of inattentional blindness paradigm (Cartwright-Finch and Lavie, ۲۰۰۷) was used to assess inattentional deafness. Sixty high school female students (Age average ۱۵) participated in the first experiment. The participants assigned randomly to three groups. All three groups completed same visual task. The task included eight trials and in each trial a cross shape was presented. One arm of the shape was slightly longer than the other one and the participants were asked to recognize the longer one. A white noise at ۴۸ dB also was played during each trial. In the seventh trial a pure tone was presented. The amplitude of the tone presented to the three groups was different. The three tones were at ۲۴, ۲۶ and ۲۸ dB. Awareness of tone was assessed immediately after completing the visual task. In the second experiment thirty five new students were recruited and assigned to two groups. Both groups performed the same visual task, but on different devices; Laptop and Cell phone. Results: The aim of this study was to compare the incidence of inattentional deafness during the performance of a complex visual task either on cell phone or laptop. Conclusion: Using the one way ANOVA revealed no significant effect of group on error rate in recognizing the longer arm. This finding implies that task difficulty was equal in three groups. Analyzing participants' reports of hearing the tone in seventh trial showed a significant difference between three groups. With ۱۱ out of ۲۰ reporting awareness in the strong tone condition, and only ۶ of ۲۰ in the weak tone condition, x۲ (۲, N = ۶۰) = ۷.۶۰, p < .۰۵. Results of the second experiment showed a clear effect of device on awareness of auditory stimulus. Inattentional deafness in Cell phone group was significantly more than laptop group. x۲(۱, N = ۳۵) = ۳۰.۰۰, p < .۰۱. The results of this study provides evidence supporting inattentional deafness phenomena and highlights the necessity to study the effects of mobile using on awareness or blindness of environmental stimulus.

کلیدواژه ها:

inattentional deafness ، inattentional blindness ، perceptual task ، smartphones