Mohammad Taghi Kheirkhah; Hamze Moazzen; Zahra Mirchi; Atefeh Nezamolslami; Moslm Kord; Mehran Mokarami; Shahriar Gharibzadeh; Majid Saffarinia
Abstract
Objective: Capture of attention occurs when a goal-irrelevant salient stimulus appears in the field of attention. The COVID-19 pandemic seems to be salient enough to capture a great proportion of one’s attention resources. The purpose of this study was to explore how the novelty of outbreak news ...
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Objective: Capture of attention occurs when a goal-irrelevant salient stimulus appears in the field of attention. The COVID-19 pandemic seems to be salient enough to capture a great proportion of one’s attention resources. The purpose of this study was to explore how the novelty of outbreak news affects attention in everyday life.Methods: 162 participants were recruited using an online invitation and divided into two samples (early and late sections). The research variables were the salience of news, intrusive thoughts, endogenous attention, and knowledge of COVID-19, which were examined and compared between the two measurements using one-way MANOVA. Additionally, a correlation analysis was performed to reveal a model of relationships between variables.Results: It was found that despite the increase in infected cases, intrusive thoughts and attentional capture decreased over time. To describe the relationship between the salience of news and attentional capture a conceptual model was presented.Conclusion: In addition to the other physical properties of a stimulus, novelty also contributes to stimulus salience. In everyday life, novel situations can trigger intrusive thoughts and attentional capture. Nonetheless, it cannot be sustained after the novelty has worn off. The proposed model can be useful to understand further similar situations.
