Transitory influence of mobile devices on cognition and behaviour.

智能手机是现代生活的一个普遍特征，全球有32亿用户，有证据表明，西方用户平均每天在大约80个不同的场合与他们的设备进行交互。一系列活动可以在智能手机上进行，例如购买产品，在社交媒体上交流，消费新闻，视频通话，游戏，赌博，甚至寻找浪漫的伴侣。越来越多的研究领域旨在调查智能手机使用与行为和认知结果之间的关联;然而，迄今为止，证据在很大程度上是相关的。这里的研究通常也集中在智能手机使用的长期影响上，对认知可能产生的短暂影响的考虑有限，鉴于智能手机的普遍存在，这些影响对日常生活中的决策具有广泛的影响。这个博士学位的目的是探索如何智能手机的互动可能会影响认知和行为在随后进行的任务在真实的和虚拟世界。智能手机互动可能会以多种方式对认知和行为产生短暂的影响。首先，智能手机使用的内在特征可能会引发某些认知程序，这些程序通过短期遗留效应影响行为。例如，来自消费者心理学文献的证据表明，直接触摸屏幕（与鼠标点击相比）会影响产品评估和选择。可以推测，屏幕触摸和鼠标点击引起的差异评估是由不同的认知程序介导的，这些程序更有可能在最近的先前激活后再次被招募。其次，智能手机提供的对庞大的社交和信息网络的近乎持续的访问意味着我们的态度和决策不断受到过多的社会影响-例如声誉反馈（通过“喜欢”和评论），社会规范和群体间过程。这些社会过程可能会在一系列背景下对认知和行为产生短期影响。例如，在Twitter上阅读两极分化的政治交流可能会使群体身份更加突出，对人，政策和新闻的评价产生下游后果。第三，智能手机与特定的配对器（例如，社交媒体“喜欢”，这与大脑的奖励处理区域的激活相关联）可能导致智能手机和这些手机之间形成关联。有证据表明，仅仅是智能手机的存在就损害了需要执行功能的任务的认知表现-据称是因为有限的资源被用来抑制对设备的注意力定向，而设备现在充满了高回报价值。在实验室和现场进行实验研究，以调查与移动的设备的某些交互如何影响随后的认知和行为，考虑到诸如冲动等结果，寻求奖励、群体间偏见和态度改变。

Smartphones are a widespread feature of modern life, with 3.2bn users globally and evidence indicating that the average Western user interacts with their device on around 80 separate occasions each day. A range of activities can be performed on smartphones, such as buying products, communicating on social media, consuming news, video calling, gaming, gambling, and even finding a romantic partner.A growing field of research aims to investigate the association between smartphone use and behavioural and cognitive outcomes; however, to date, the evidence has been largely correlational. Research here has also generally focussed on the long-term effects of smartphone use, with limited consideration of the possible transitory influences on cognition, which have wide reaching implications for decisions in everyday life given the ubiquity of smartphones. The aim of this PhD is to explore how smartphone interactions may influence cognition and behaviour in subsequently undertaken tasks in both the real and virtual world. Smartphone interactions may exert a transitory influence on cognition and behaviour in multiple ways. Firstly, intrinsic features of smartphone use may prime certain cognitive procedures, which impact behaviour through short-term carryover effects. For example, evidence from the consumer psychology literature has shown that direct screen touch (versus mouse clicking) influences product evaluation and selection. It can be theorised that the differential evaluations elicited by screen touches and mouse clicks are mediated by distinct cognitive procedures, which are more likely to be recruited again following recent prior activation. Secondly, the near-constant access to vast social and informational networks afforded by smartphones means that our attitudes and decisions are continuously open to a plethora of social influences - such as reputational feedback (through 'likes' and comments), social norms, and intergroup processes. These social processes may have short-term effects on cognition and behaviour across a range of contexts. For example, reading a polarised political exchange on Twitter may make group identity more salient, with downstream consequences on the evaluation of people, policies, and news. Thirdly, repeated pairings of smartphones with particular reinforcers (e.g., social media 'likes', which are associated with activation of reward-processing areas of the brain) may lead to an association forming between smartphones and these reinforcers. Evidence has indicated that the mere presence of a smartphone impairs cognitive performance on tasks requiring executive function - purportedly because finite resources are used to inhibit attentional orientation to the device which is now imbued with a high-reward value.The research within this PhD will use a series of experimental and quasi-experimental studies within the laboratory and field to investigate how certain interactions with mobile devices can influence subsequent cognition and behaviour, considering outcomes such as impulsivity, reward-seeking, intergroup biases, and attitude change.