Coherence of the irrelevant-sound effect: Individual profiles of short-term memory and susceptibility to task-irrelevant materials

Abstract

We examined individual and developmental differences in the disruptive effects of irrelevant sounds on serial recall of printed lists. In Experiment 1, we examined adults (N ϭ 205) receiving eight-item lists to be recalled. Although their susceptibility to disruption of recall by irrelevant sounds was only slightly related to memory span, regression analyses documented highly reliable individual differences in this susceptibility across speech and tone distractors, even with variance from span level removed. In Experiment 2, we examined adults (n ϭ 64) and 8-year-old children (n ϭ 63) receiving lists of a length equal to a predetermined span and one item shorter (span Ϫ 1). We again found significant relationships between measures of span and susceptibility to irrelevant sounds, although in only two of the measures. We conclude that some of the cognitive processes helpful in performing a span task may not be beneficial in the presence of irrelevant sounds.

High working memory capacity attenuates the deviation effect but not the changing-state effect: Further support for the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction

“…This finding accords with previous studies that showed that high WMC can attenuate the power of sounds to capture attention ). The experiments reported here also found that WMC is unrelated to the changing-state effect, a finding that is consistent with those from previous research (Beaman, 2004;Elliott & Cowan, 2005). This pattern of results was the same whether spoken letters (Experiment 1) or tones (Experiment 2) constituted the sound sequences that produced the disruption of the serial recall task.…”

“…However, several authors have tried and failed to find this relationship (Beaman, 2004;Elliott & Cowan, 2005; for an exception, see Elliott, Barrilleaux, & Cowan, 2006). On the other hand, if the changing-state effect is caused by interference between order processes, as is proposed by the interferenceby-process account (Macken et al, 1999), then individual differences in the capability to process order, rather than WMC, should predict disruption.…”

Suppression effects on musical and verbal memory

“…The findings of Experiments 1 and 2 do not, however, support a modular view of working memory that distinguishes between memory for music and speech. These findings are more consistent with evidence of mechanisms common to different types of auditory traces; proposals include general auditory segmentation mechanisms (Bregman, 1990;Jones et al, 1995), retrieval-based features subject to similarity-based interference (Jones & Macken, 1993;Nairne, 1990), and individual differences in activated features from longterm memory (Cowan, Saults & Nugent, 1997;Elliott & Cowan, 2005). The latter explanation, in particular, is consistent with the fact that musical experience mediates the differential interference of suppression on visually presented music.…”

“…Experiment 3 was also designed to test the original hypothesis: that visual and auditory presentation of notes are differentially affected by suppression, in a within-participants comparison of presentation modalities. Presentation modality effects in Experiment 1 were evaluated between participants, as in Murray (1967Murray ( , 1968; although there were no group differences in musical expertise in Experiment 1, individual differences could, in principle, have influenced the presentation modality effects (Elliott & Cowan, 2005). Therefore, in contrast to Experiment 1, in which the participants were able to rehearse the visually presented music under natural conditions (in whatever manner they preferred), Experiment 3 forced the participants to translate the notation into an auditory form in order to succeed at the task.…”

“…Some have proposed separate working memory processes for music (Berz, 1995;Pechmann & Mohr, 1992). Others have proposed that similar working memory processes account for many types of auditory information, including musical tones (Elliott & Cowan, 2005;Jones & Macken, 1993;Salame & Baddeley, 1989). We addressed this question in three experiments by applying a well-known verbal working memory paradigm to music: the articulatory suppression paradigm.…”