Smartphones, Attention, and Brain Electrical Responses

Abstract

The mere presence of one’s smartphone can be a distraction, impairing behavioral performance on an attention task (Ward et al., 2017). Attention is positively associated with both amplitude of the P3 (a component of EEG-based event-related potentials) and EEG power in the 13-32 Hz (Beta) frequency range, making these potential physiological measures to further investigate smartphone effects. In the presence of one’s smartphone, we predict a decrease in P3 amplitude to targets in a classic 2-stimulus oddball task. Given that passive viewing of cigarettes evokes increased Beta activity in smokers (Littel et al., 2009), we also expect that passive viewing of smartphones will lead to an increase in Beta power. We predict any smartphone EEG effects may correlate with measures of phone usage/dependency.