Effect of High and Low Motivation on Two Aspects of Attention

Two procedures were carried out to evaluate the effect of motivational intensity and relevance on attention. The experiment was designed to test the hypothesis that intense motivation acts consistently to reduce the number of cues utilized in a learning and/or performance task when these cues are relevant to the completion of a task. The results of the present study point to the existence of two functionally independent processes: (1) a span of attention process, concerned with the extent and breadth of attentional activity directed to stimuli which are relevant to a task; and (2) a scanning process, related to the fixation and recall of specific cue stimuli relevant to a task. It is this latter process which was postulated to be disrupted by high motivation.