External distraction and attentional narrowing: Visual search evidence

We examined distraction and attentional narrowing in a dual-task auto-racin g simulation. Participants were randomly assigned to six groups: distractio n control, distraction anxiety, relevant control, relevant anxiety, central control, and central anxiety. Those in central conditions performed a driv ing task: the other four groups identified peripheral lights in addition to driving, irrelevant peripheral lights were included in distraction conditi ons. Participants in anxiety conditions were exposed to increasing levels o f anxiety via a time-to-event paradigm, in 3 sessions of 20 trials, measure s of cognitive anxiety, arousal, visual search patterns, and performance we re recorded. At higher levels of anxiety, the identification of peripheral lights became slower and less accurate, and significant performance decreme nts occurred in central and peripheral tasks. Furthermore, visual search pa tterns were more eccentric in the distraction anxiety group. Results sugges t that drivers who are highly anxious experience an altered ability to acqu ire peripheral information at the perceptual level.