TELEVISION DISTRACTION AND THE PERFORMANCE OF INTROVERTS AND EXTROVERTS

An experiment was run to test the effect on reading comprehension of d istraction by a television programme, which was presented while readin g took place. Respondents, classified in terms of extroversion or intr oversion, carried out two reading comprehension tests in silence and i n the presence of a television drama programme. As predicted, extrover ts and introverts both performed better in silence, but there was a si gnificant interaction that showed that extroverts performed better tha n introverts in the presence of television distraction. The findings a re discussed in relation to previous research on this subject.