Do concerns about COVID-19 impair sustained attention?

Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications

Table 3 Pearson’s correlation coefficient between COVID-19 responses and CPT performance in Experiment 1. Skill index is calculated as No-go accuracy divided by Go RT

Variables	Overall A’	Reduction in A’ across blocks	Skill index	No-go (mountain) accuracy	Go (city) RT
Demographic ratings
Age	*.19*	− .04	*.20*	*.21*	.12
Education	*.19*	− .03	*.17*	*.18*	.15
Income	.12	.06	.10	.09	.02
Political orientation	*.17*	− .10	.15	*.18*	.15
Concerns related to COVID-19
Health concern	− .01	.01	.03	.04	.05
Financial concern	.15	− .13	*.17*	*.21*	*.17*
Non-financial concern (Factor 1)	.08	.05	.08	.10	.12
Average of all eight items	.13	− .01	.14	*.17*	*.17*
Behavioral compliance
Social distancing	− .13	− .15	*− .16*	− .14	− .03
Hygienic behavior	− .08	− .11	− .11	− .11	− .06

In the correlation analysis between income and other variables, participants who chose the answer “I prefer not to answer this question” were excluded, leading to N = 142. All other analyses had N = 161. None of the results reached Bonferroni adjusted alpha of .001. These results held after controlling for age, education level, income, and political orientation. Boldface italics: p < .05 (uncorrected for multiple comparisons)