Why do distractions sometimes aid self-control? Pigeons (Columba livia) highlight possible mechanisms underlying the distraction effect.

Abstract

In this essay, the author explores the question of why distractions sometimes aid self-control. In a study with chimpanzees, Evans and Beran (2007) used two conditions with toys to address the possibility raised by Mueller et al. (2023) about toys as distractors. In the first, the accumulating rewards were within reach, and so chimpanzees had to inhibit taking rewards if more were to accumulate. The second condition was essential to this issue, as in that case toys also were available, but the delayed reward was out of reach (i.e., the chimpanzees were forced to wait to get the delayed reward). Because these trial types were intermixed, an explanation of the toys' effectiveness through conditioned association with the delayed reward would predict that the chimpanzees should have engaged the toys equally often in both conditions. However, three of four chimpanzees engaged the toys more when the accumulating reward was within reach compared to when it was not. Evans and Beran suggested that engagement with distractors in that study occurred when it was functionally effective in aiding delayed gratification, not solely as a result of toys being associated with delayed rewards, and thus was a cognitively controlled decision by the chimpanzees. The results of Evans and Beran (2007) have yet to be replicated in any other primate species. But, Mueller et al. (2023) noted that a study with a parrot (Koepke et al., 2015) showed that the parrot would use distractors and even move the smaller, sooner reward away from itself, perhaps matching the self-distraction techniques of children who hide their faces or talk to themselves. Thus, it remains to be determined whether those behaviors also can be explained by learned associations with reward or whether they reflect attention-based explanations. Mueller et al. (2023) have provided a creative experiment and a compelling argument that more careful analysis is needed of exactly what happens when an animal (or child) engages distractors and shows improved self-control, so that we can understand what role past reinforcement history may play and what possible attentional strategies or other cognitive strategies are at work in different self-control tasks. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).