@article{ref1,
title="Manipulations of attention enhance self-regulation",
journal="Acta psychologica",
year="2012",
author="Hanif, Asma and Ferrey, Anne E. and Frischen, Alexandra and Pozzobon, Kathryn and Eastwood, John D. and Smilek, Daniel and Fenske, Mark J.",
volume="139",
number="1",
pages="104-110",
abstract="Successful goal-directed behavior requires self-regulation to override competing impulses. Emerging evidence suggests that attention may mediate such acts, but little is known about the specific operations through which attention might influence self-regulation. Here we test this often-implicit assumption by manipulating attention mechanisms in two ways: one controlling the inhibition of inappropriate responses; the other controlling the breadth of attention. Participants significantly improved their performance on a self-regulation task after practice on a response inhibition task (Experiment 1) and after the induction of a broad focus of attention in a visual discrimination task (Experiment 2). We propose that such manipulations enhance self-regulation by engaging mechanisms that enhance the salience of goal-related representations and reduce the activation of competing goal-irrelevant neural representations. By more efficiently resolving conflict among the signals vying to drive behavior, pre-engaging attention may also help to conserve resources needed for continued self-regulation.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0001-6918",
doi="10.1016/j.actpsy.2011.09.010",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2011.09.010"
}