Revealed Attentional Interference

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.