Attention Capture
In the artificial-diagnosis studies described here, Chinese participants performed better when they chose which symptoms to display than when symptoms appeared automatically. The authors suggest attention to weak predictors or processing overload as possible explanations; the display change had little effect on the Japanese and American participants.
THE IDEA
Numerous studies have shown that the Chinese and at least some other East Asians are especially sensitive, in comparison to Westerners, to occurrences in their surroundings (see, for example, Hoosain, 1986; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, in press). This provides another mechanism by which cross-cultural variations in probability judgment might occur. The Yates et al. (1998) artificial medical ecology studies provided direct evidence on the judgment implications of the implied cultural differences in the ease with which attention is captured by physically salient information. The two artificial ecology studies differed in how patient symptoms were displayed. In the first study, the current states of the same fixed set of six symptoms were automatically shown on the computer screen for every patient. In the second study, however, symptom display was at the discretion of the participant. That is, at the outset, none of the symptoms was displayed. The participant had to make an explicit request for every symptom that he or she wished to see in order to inform a diagnosis of Trebitis versus Philiosis. This distinction had little impact on the judgments of the Japanese and American participants, but the effect was substantial for the Chinese. Discretion markedly improved the overall accuracy of their diagnoses, and this improvement appeared to be localized in improved discrimination. When the symptoms were displayed automatically for every patient in the first experiment, this seemed to corrupt the discrimination in the Chinese participants’ judgments. This plausibly could have occurred because, try as they might, the Chinese “physicians” simply could not ignore the weakly predictive symptoms that they realized, objectively, they ought to ignore. Alternatively, they might have tried to take so many symptoms into account that the processing demands required to handle them effectively exceeded the available cognitive capacity.
When to use it
Medical diagnosis: doctors may be influenced by salient but irrelevant symptoms, leading to misdiagnosis.
Financial trading: traders might focus excessively on recent news rather than long-term trends due to attention capture.
Product design: attention capture can be used to draw users' focus to key features, but also cause distraction from primary tasks.
Cross-cultural communication: awareness of attention capture differences can improve collaboration and reduce misunderstandings.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Medical Diagnosis Study
In Yates et al. (1998), participants diagnosed fictional Trebitis and Philiosis from symptom information. Chinese participants were more accurate when they could request symptoms than when a fixed set appeared automatically. The authors discuss difficulty ignoring weak predictors and excessive processing demands as possible explanations.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
How might attention capture affect your decision-making in a data-rich environment?
Can you recall a situation where salient but irrelevant information influenced your judgment?
What steps can you take to minimize the impact of attention capture when making important decisions?
References
- Hoosain (1986) — Hoosain, R. (1986)
- Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan (in press) — Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzayan, A.
- Yates et al. (1998) — Yates, J. F., et al. (1998)
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Heuristics and Biases The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment (Thomas Gilovich, Dale Griffin, Daniel Kahneman)