Revealed Attentional Interference

2026-07-15

AI Summary

This study investigates how external stimuli influence attention and consideration set formation through proactive interference—suppressing the infiltration of external information—and retroactive interference—displacing endogenously generated alternatives. Under a general framework, theoretical analysis reveals that only an upper bound on the infiltration parameter is identifiable. However, by imposing a monotonicity assumption on internal attention, both upper and lower bounds become simultaneously identifiable, substantially enhancing model identifiability. Integrating modeling of attentional interference, rigorous identifiability analysis, and numerical simulations, this work establishes, for the first time within a general setting, the identification boundaries of interference mechanisms and demonstrates the critical role of the monotonicity assumption in improving the precision of parameter estimation.

Abstract

We study the impact of external stimuli on attention in the Attentional Interference Model, capturing two opposing forces in consideration-set formation: proactive and retroactive interference. Proactive interference limits the permeation of external information, while retroactive interference displaces internally generated considerations. We model these forces using parameters governing permeation and displacement. In a general setting, we characterize the tight range of these parameters and show that, across several specifications, only an upper bound on permeation is revealed. Imposing monotonicity on internal attention in one case both tightens this upper bound and yields a lower bound. We illustrate our results through simulation.

Problem

• attentional interference
• proactive interference
• retroactive interference
• consideration-set formation
• external stimuli

Innovation

• Attentional Interference
• Proactive Interference
• Retroactive Interference
• Consideration Set Formation
• Parameter Identifiability