ABSTRACT
Cognitive interference refers to intrusive thoughts—thoughts that are unwanted, undesirable, and perhaps disturbing. People who experience cognitive interference often describe themselves as troubled and unhappy about their inability to become absorbed in significant aspects of their lives and their performance level may be detrimentally affected by the intrusions. Someone ridden with obsessive thoughts may show impaired performance and may be puzzled and concerned about why the unwanted thoughts occur. People who are unduly worried about what other people think about them may have difficulty feeling comfortable in social situations. Although intrusive thoughts can occur in almost any kind of situation, the undesirable effects of these thoughts have perhaps been studied most intensively in relation to the performance of tasks. Cognitive interference gets in the way of effective performance because it is the opposite of cognitive accessibility. It diminishes attention to the task the individual is performing (Sarason, Sarason, Keefe, Hayes, & Shearin, 1986). Researchers who study cognitive interference face the challenge of discriminating between on-and off-task thoughts—thoughts which reflects task involvement and are directed towards task completion and thoughts which are not (Alting & Markham, 1993).
