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Examining the Spread of Attention Across Students in a Learning Environment
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Description: Here we propose a novel phenomenon, attention contagion, which we define as the spread of attentive (or inattentive) states among members of a group. Attention contagion may be prevalent in undergraduate lectures (and other classroom settings), where attentive and inattentive behaviors can spread between students. We therefore tested for the existence of attention contagion in a simulated classroom experiment, in which undergraduate students watched a lecture video in pairs. In each pair, one student was an actual participant whereas the other was a confederate trained to exhibit attentive behaviors (e.g., leaning forward, taking notes frequently) or inattentive behaviors (e.g., slouching, taking notes infrequently). Relative to participants who watched the lecture with an inattentive confederate, participants with an attentive confederate: (1) self-reported being “on task” significantly more often, (2) took significantly more lecture notes, and (3) performed significantly better on a multiple-choice test of lecture content. The attentiveness of a classmate clearly influences the attentiveness and learning of another student in the classroom.