Plain English Meaning

Getting pulled off-task easily. Your attention keeps drifting to whatever else is going on instead of staying on what you're supposed to be doing.

Full Definition

A reduced ability to maintain focused attention on relevant tasks, marked by a tendency to shift attention to unrelated stimuli. In aviation, it is recognized as a symptom of fatigue and a degradation of pilot performance.

Context Anchor

Seen in human factors and fatigue discussions, especially when recognizing how tiredness affects a pilot’s attention, decisions, and performance.

Derivation

From the Latin 'distrahere' meaning 'to pull apart' (dis- 'apart' + trahere 'to draw'). The image is literal: your attention is being pulled in different directions instead of held on one thing. The '-ibility' ending means 'the tendency or to be' that way.