MSCA (Marie Skłodowska-Curie-Actions) är EU:s finansieringsprogram för doktorand- och postdoktorandutbildning.
Beskrivning av projektet
ARCADE - Addressing the Distraction Crisis: a Cognitive Model of Attentional Allocation, Detraction, and Control
This project investigates how people allocate, lose, and regain attention in digitally saturated environments.
Digital technologies are increasingly designed to capture attention, often pulling people away from ongoing tasks through notifications, feeds, and other interruptions. While the costs of distraction are widely acknowledged, existing cognitive models struggle to explain why attention is so easily captured and why returning to a task can be difficult. In particular, motivation and mental effort are often treated only superficially.
The ARCADE project will develop a neuro-computational model of attentional capture and task re-engagement that integrates motivational value, cognitive effort, and the costs of task switching. The model will be tested using a newly designed experimental task that incorporates realistic forms of distraction and combines behavioural measures with eye-tracking and pupillometry.
By linking decision-making, attention, and cognitive control within a single formal framework, the project aims to improve our understanding of how distraction shapes productivity and mental effort. In the longer term, the findings may help inform the design of digital environments that better support sustained attention and task engagement.