{"id":7803,"date":"2024-09-08T08:00:43","date_gmt":"2024-09-08T13:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=7803"},"modified":"2024-09-05T09:31:40","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T14:31:40","slug":"attention-contagion-in-the-real-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/attention-contagion-in-the-real-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Attention Contagion in the “Real World”: Plato was Right!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m always grateful to have research guidance for my classroom work, but I have to admit: it can take A LONG TIME.<\/p>\n

For instance, I’ve got an upcoming blog post about reseach into figdet spinners<\/em> — and those little guys were a thing back in 2017. It took (can it be?) SEVEN years to look into their benefits\/harms for students with ADHD.<\/p>\n

\"Bored<\/a><\/p>\n

However, I have to say that\u00a0attention contagion\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>is moving quickly.<\/p>\n

I first heard about attention contagion — the idea that students can “catch” attentiveness, and inattentiveness, from each other — this summer. Back in that blog post<\/a>, I noted that we’ve got only two recent studies on the topic. We need more research — and research in conditions that look like real classrooms — before we\u00a0make too much of this concept.<\/p>\n

Well, this research team (led by Noah Forrin) must have heard my request — they ALREADY have another study out<\/a>. And, this one looks at students in a classroom-like setting. SO COOL.<\/p>\n

The Setup<\/h2>\n

Team Forrin set up a fairly typical lecture hall scenario: rows of desks facing a large screen, where a video tape of lecture played.<\/p>\n

60 students attended this “lecture,” and took notes as they did so. Afterwards they took a quiz on the lecture content and filled out a survey about the experience.<\/p>\n

Here’s the key: fifteen of those 60 students were — basically — college-age actors. (The technical word is “confederates.”)<\/p>\n

For half of the lectures, these actors were trained to be\u00a0attentive<\/strong>: they took notes, sat upright, focused on the lecture video, and looked intersted.<\/p>\n

For the other half, they were trained to be\u00a0inattentive<\/strong>: they took no notes, slouched, looked around, and looked bored.<\/p>\n

Notice — this detail will be important — the inattentive students were not\u00a0distracting<\/em>. They didn’t fidget or stretch\u00a0 or yawn or tap their pens or play games on laptops. (In fact, laptops and cell phones were not allowed.)<\/p>\n

Importantly, the seating was carefully arranged. The non-actors were seated either…<\/p>\n

…\u00a0between<\/em> actors, or<\/p>\n

…behind or in front of\u00a0<\/i>actors, or<\/p>\n

… far away from actors<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So, here are the questions:<\/p>\n

Did the students\u00a0catch<\/em> attentiveness<\/em> from the actors? Or, did they\u00a0catch INattentiveness<\/em> from actors?<\/p>\n

And: did the seating location matter? Specifically, did the in between<\/i> students or the\u00a0in front\/behind<\/em> students react differently than the\u00a0far away<\/em> students?<\/p>\n

The Payoff<\/h2>\n

Forrin and his colleagues\u00a0had\u00a0A LOT of data to sort, and I won’t go through it all. The results, in my view, aren’t terribly surprising<\/em> — but they are very\u00a0interesting.<\/em> And,\u00a0helpful.<\/em><\/p>\n

First: yes, students could catch inattention from the actors.<\/p>\n

Researchers know this because, when seated near inattentive actors:<\/p>\n

On their surveys, the students rated themselves as more inattentive.<\/p>\n

The took fewer notes.<\/p>\n

They scored lower on the post-lecture quiz.<\/p>\n

Second: students catch inattention\u00a0when sitting next to or between<\/strong> inattentive actors<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I am — honestly — not surprised that students seated far away didn’t catch inattentiveness. (If you check out the seating diagram on page 4 of the study, you’ll see why.)<\/p>\n

I am — and the researchers were — surprised that students DIDN’T catch inattentiveness when sitting behind or in front of inattentive actors<\/em>.<\/p>\n

By the way, you remember the important detail from above: the actors were trained to be inattentive\u00a0but not distracting<\/em>. Sure enough, those end-of-lecture surveys showed that the students\u00a0were not distracted<\/em>\u00a0by classmates.<\/p>\n

This point merits focus because we can have some confidence that the problem was\u00a0actual inattentiveness<\/em> — not distraction. The researchers, in other words, effectively isolated a variable — even though it’s a difficult one to isolate.<\/p>\n

Practical Implications<\/h2>\n

Teachers since Plato have known to sit the distractible students between focused students. Well, this research suggests that we’ve been right all along.<\/p>\n

More surprising, sitting students in front of or behind attentive peers doesn’t (in this study) have the same effect.<\/p>\n

And, completely unsurprisingly, students sitting far away from attentive peers do not “catch” their focus.<\/p>\n

Forrin’s team concludes by suggesting that further research be done in\u00a0actual classrooms<\/em>. Here’s hoping they publish that study soon!<\/p>\n

\n

Forrin, N. D., Kudsi, N., Cyr, E. N., Sana, F., Davidesco, I., & Kim, J. A. (2024). Investigating attention contagion between students in a lecture hall.\u00a0Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\n

Thanks to professor Mike Hobbiss for drawing my attention to this study.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m always grateful to have research guidance for my classroom work, but I have to admit: it can take A LONG TIME. For instance, I’ve got an upcoming blog post about reseach into figdet spinners — and those little guys were a thing back in 2017. It took (can it be?) SEVEN years to look […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":7807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-7803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-attention"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7803"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7811,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7803\/revisions\/7811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}