Editing Attention (section)

===Distracting factors===

According to Daniel Goleman's book, ''Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence'', there are two types of distracting factors affecting focus – sensory and emotional.

A sensory distracting factor would be, for example, while a person is reading this article, they are neglecting the white field surrounding the text.

An emotional distracting factor would be when someone is focused on answering an email, and somebody shouts their name. It would be almost impossible to neglect the voice speaking it. Attention is immediately directed toward the source. Positive emotions have also been found to affect attention. Induction of happiness has led to increased response times and an increase in inaccurate responses in the face of irrelevant stimuli. Two possible theories as to why emotions might make one more susceptible to distracting stimuli is that emotions take up too much of one's cognitive resources and make it harder to control your focus of attention. The other theory is that emotions make it harder to filter out distractions, specifically with positive emotions due to a feeling of security.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Pacheco-Unguetti |first1=Antonia Pilar |last2=Parmentier |first2=Fabrice B. R. |date=August 2016 |title=Happiness increases distraction by auditory deviant stimuli |url=https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12148 |journal=British Journal of Psychology |volume=107 |issue=3 |pages=419–433 |doi=10.1111/bjop.12148 |pmid=26302716 |issn=0007-1269|hdl=10481/100857 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

Another distracting factor to attention processes is insufficient sleep. Sleep deprivation is found to impair cognition, specifically performance in divided attention. Divided attention is possibly linked with the circadian processes.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Drummond | first=S | title=The Effects of Total Sleep Deprivation on Cerebral Responses to Cognitive Performance | journal=Neuropsychopharmacology | publisher=Springer Science and Business Media LLC | volume=25 | issue=5 | year=2001 | issn=0893-133X | doi=10.1016/s0893-133x(01)00325-6 | pages=S68–S73| pmid=11682277 }}</ref>