Ringtone captures people’s attention

Your ringtone captures other people’s attention __ study

Ringtones can draw people’s attention away from on-going activities, according to a study about ringtones released on January-February 2014.
The study investigated whether the bad effects of a ringing cell phone on short-term memory are unavoidable or become smaller as a function of exposure and whether (self-) relevance plays a role.

In the study, cell phones received so many negative mentions because of the ringtones, according to the lead author Jan Philip, a fellow at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University Düsseldorf.

Participants, in the study, were substantially slower in responding to tasks when a cell phone ringtone was presented. This makes sense because hearing a ring tone during a lecture will lead to poor performance. However, the disruptive effect will be less pronounced when the hearer informed that an auditory distraction would occur; that means that the foreknowledge would help adapting the future actions.

In addition, our own cell phone’s ringtones are much more attention‑grabbing than someone else’s because we have learned to respond with overt behavior to the former but not to the latter. Certain properties may be a desirable feature of one’s own ringtone because it signals the need for action but the same properties may be extremely annoying when another person’s cell phone rings. Despite the sound’s call for attention, it is completely irrelevant for us, according to the study.

The study showed that when using strictly regulated misleading clue material that would fail to find habituation effects. But when using material that is closer to real‑world environments such as office noise; there will be an attentional disruption. However, there is a disagreement to whether the bad effect of ringtones is unavoidable or it can be subjected to habituation.

Nearly 73% of the participants, in the study, believed that the ringing of a cell phone are unpleasant sounds. The only sound that was mentioned by more people as being annoying was a dentist drill.

The number of mobile‑cellular subscriptions is expected to exceed the world population by the year 2014, according to the latest report of the International Telecommunication Union. That means the number of ringtones will be exceeded as well.

Participants were asked, after the experiment, whether they had noticed that their own ringtone had been presented or not, all of them answered “yes.”, the result showed.

Published April 26th, 2014.