The Color-Word Interference Test and Its Relation to Performance Impairment Under Auditory Distraction,

The ability to resist distraction is an important requirement for air traffic controllers. The study examined the relationship between performance on the Stroop color-word interference test a suggested measure of distraction susceptibility and impairment under auditory distraction on a task requiring the subject to generate random sequences of letters. Fifty male college students served as Ss. Although there was a significant decrease in randomness as a result of auditory distraction, the correlation between change in randomness and amount of color-word interference wa nonsignificant. These findings, along with those of several other studies, suggest that the Stroop test may measure a rather restricted type of perceptual interference essentially unrelated to a possibly more general ability to maintain concentration in the presence of competing distracting stimuli. Author