The influence of distraction on reading comprehension: a Big Five analysis

This experiment is a partial replication of the Furnham, Gunter, and Peterson (1994) study of personality and television distraction effects on undergraduate reading comprehension performance. We examined the effects of television distraction on the reading comprehension of 178 undergraduates who were either relatively high or low on the five major personality domains: extraversion (E), neuroticism (N), agreeableness (A), conscientiousness (C), and openness to experience (O). Participants completed a personality inventory and two comprehension passages––one in silence and the other while being distracted. The usual extraversion over introversion superiority was found in one condition, while a lack of task difficulty/complexity and the effects of transmarginal inhibition are thought to have complicated other findings pertaining to E. Results were inconclusive with respect to N, C, A and O. These results, which highlight the complex nature of personality, comprehension and distraction, are discussed with reference to other research findings.