Abstract
The study dealt with the influence of drive content and cognitive style (field dependence) on the deployment of attention between two competing tasks. Ss were less able to call out letters in a random order when they simultaneously had to listen to a taped verbal passage (at one time with open sexual content and at another with more neutral content). The amount of recall of the verbal passage was positively correlated with the degree of decrease in randomness on the letter task. On the passage with sexual content, field-dependent Ss had a poorer recall and showed no relationship between the amount of recall and the decrease in randomness on the letter task. Individual differences in randomness were highly consistent across several distraction conditions and were unrelated to field dependence.
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