Descripción del proyecto
EFFICIENT COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING OFTEN REQUIRES THE ABILITY TO FILTER OUT TASK-IRRELEVANT STIMULI IN ORDER TO CONCENTRATE ON A TASK AT HAND, AT THE SAME TIME, IT IS ALSO ADAPTIVE AND IMPORTANT FOR AN ORGANISM TO DETECT SUDDEN CHANGES IN ITS IMMEDIATE ENVIRONMENT IN ORDER TO REACT APPROPRIATELY, A TRADE-OFF BETWEEN SELECTIVE ATTENTION AND CHANGE DETECTION IS ADVANTAGEOUS AND MAY ARGUABLY HAVE PLAYED AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN THE EVOLUTION OF OUR COGNITIVE SYSTEM, THIS TRADEOFF, WHILE POSSIBLY PROVIDING AN OPTIMAL SOLUTION TO THESE DIVERGENT NECESSITIES, CAN HOWEVER COME AT A COST: DISTRACTION, ONE CLASS OF STIMULI PARTICULARLY PRONE TO YIELD DISTRACTION, COMMON IN EVERYDAY LIFE SITUATIONS ARE UNEXPECTED CHANGES IN OUR AUDITORY SURROUNDINGS (DEVIANT STIMULI), DEVIANT STIMULI ARE DEFINED AS STIMULI THAT VIOLATE PREDICTIONS BY DEVIATING FROM AN OTHERWISE REPETITIVE OR STRUCTURED SEQUENCE AND CAN DO SO ON THE BASIS OF RELATIVELY LOW-LEVEL CHARACTERISTICS (SUCH AS SENSORY FEATURES) OR MORE ABSTRACT ONES (SUCH AS A RULE), THE DISTRACTION YIELDED BY DEVIANT STIMULI (REFERRED TO AS DEVIANCE DISTRACTION) IS CHARACTERIZED BY SPECIFIC ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL MARKERS AND A BEHAVIORAL EFFECT, IN A TASK WHERE PARTICIPANTS ATTEND AND RESPOND TO A TARGET STIMULUS OR STIMULUS FEATURE, BEHAVIORAL DEVIANCE DISTRACTION IS DEFINED AS THE LENGTHENING OF RESPONSE TIMES AND, SOMETIMES, THE REDUCTION IN RESPONSE ACCURACY, FOLLOWING THE PRESENTATION OF A DEVIANT SOUND, RECENT EXPERIMENTAL WORK HAS BEGUN TO UNPICK THE COGNITIVE MECHANISMS UNDERPINNING THIS BEHAVIORAL EFFECT BUT A NUMBER OF KEY QUESTIONS REMAIN TO BE ADDRESSED BEFORE AN INTEGRATED THEORY OF DISTRACTION CAN BE FORMALIZED AND POTENTIAL PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS BE DERIVED, THE PRESENT PROPOSAL DESCRIBES A PROGRAM OF WORK INCLUDING NOVEL AND INNOVATIVE LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS DESIGNED TO (1) STUDY THE ROLE OF STIMULUS AND RESPONSE UNCERTAINTY IN MEDIATING DISTRACTION; (2) USE SEVERAL TYPES OF TASKS (MOTOR TRACKING, EYE MOVEMENTS, FORCE CONTROL) TO STUDY THE RECENT HYPOTHESIS OF A GLOBAL MOTOR INHIBITION FOLLOWING THE OCCURRENCE OF UNEXPECTED SOUNDS; AND (3) ESTABLISH THE ROLE AND IMPACT OF CONTEXTUAL INFORMATION IN SUCH AUDITORY DISTRACTION, THIS WORK BUILDS UP ON THE PRINCIPAL APPLICANTS TRACK RECORD IN THIS FIELD, FINDINGS GENERATED AS PART OF PREVIOUS NATIONAL PROJECTS, AND RECENT PUBLICATIONS IN THE FIELD, THE PROJECT AIMS TO EXTEND OUR CURRENT KNOWLEDGE OF DISTRACTION BY UNEXPECTED SOUNDS TO HELP BUILD AN INTEGRATIVE THEORY OF DISTRACTION AND IDENTIFY FACTORS MODULATING SUCH DISTRACTION WITH THE VIEW OF FORMULATING RECOMMENDATIONS THAT MAY BE OF USE IN APPLIED SITUATIONS, IN ADDITION, THE PROJECT AIMS TO DISSEMINATE THE RESULTS FROM THIS NOVEL EMPIRICAL WORK TO THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY AND THE PUBLIC THROUGH A SERIES OF DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES, AND TO PARTICIPATE TO THE INTERNALIZATION OF RESEARCH AND THE ENHANCEMENT OF MADE-IN-SPAIN RESEARCH ON THE INTERNATIONAL SCENE, DISTRACCION AUDITIVA\ATENCION\PSICOLOGIA EXPERIMENTAL\CONDUCTA HUMANA