Do notifications cause errors? The impact of hover effect and notifications on attention

Психологические исследования: электронный научный журнал. 2026. Vol. 19. No. 108. Article 8.

Anufrieva A.

This study aimed to clarify whether attentional errors may arise following distraction by notifications. It also examined the combined effects of website hover effect (i.e., perceptual feedback from interactive elements) and notification characteristics (animation and content) on attentional sustainability and shifting. Five experiments were conducted: Experiments 1–3 focused on sustained attention, whereas Experiments 4–5 examined attentional shifting. A modified Bourdon test served as the primary task. The results indicated that, on average, accuracy in the sustained attention task was higher in the condition with hover effect, even when notifications contained no content. However, this effect was eliminated when content was added to the notifications. Moreover, in the hover effect condition, performing the sustained attention task immediately after the appearance of notifications was associated with an increase in errors. For attentional shifting, no performance advantage was observed as an impact of hover effect, nor was there an increase in errors following notification. In both tasks, notifications were detected more rapidly in the presence of hover effect, suggesting its facilitative effect on selective attention. Overall, the findings indicate that notifications do not inevitably lead to errors. Their occurrence appears to require conditions of high cognitive load in combination with the presence of hover effect on a website.

Keywords: перегрузка, переключаемость внимания, cognitive-digital interaction, когнитивно-цифровое взаимодействие, sustained attention, attention shifting, notifications, hover effect, overload, устойчивость внимания, уведомления, эффект наведения

Publication based on the results of: Cognitive processes in the information environment: phenomena and explanatory models (2025)