Testing the Attention-Distractibility Trait

Forster and Lavie (2014, 2016) found that task-irrelevant distraction correlated positively with a measure of mind-wandering and a report of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptomology. Based primarily on these results, Forster and Lavie claimed to establish an attention-distractibility trait. Here, I sought to replicate the associations among measures of task-irrelevant distraction, mind wandering, and ADHD symptomology, and to test if these associations could be distinguished from associations with working memory capacity and task-relevant distraction. With data collected from two hundred and twenty-six subjects (ns differ among analyses), the results from the current study suggest that the measure of task-irrelevant distraction is not (or only very weakly) associated with measures of mind wandering (measured both with a stand-alone questionnaire and in-task thought probes) and ADHD symptomology. Additionally, the measure of irrelevant-distraction exhibited low internal consistency suggesting that (as measured) it is not capable of being a an individual differences measure. [Preregistration, data, analysis scripts and output are available via the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/bhs24/].