Divided attention and memory: Evidence of substantial interference effects at retrieval and encoding.

Fernandes, Myra A.; Moscovitch, Morris

doi:10.1037/0096-3445.129.2.155

Cited by 264 publications

(311 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Another possibility for the basis of LTM disruption by auditory distraction is that due to limited attentional resources (Pashler & Shiu, 1999), simultaneous, divided attention to visual and auditory stimuli (i.e., visual test cues and auditory distractors) may diminish perception of the memory cues and is reflected in reduced LTM performance (Fernandes & Moscovitch, 2000;Talsma, Doty, & Woldorff, 2007;Troyer, Winocur, Craik, & Moscovitch, 1999). Recent results show, however, that division of attention between overlapping perceptual and memory tasks slows responses but does not diminish accuracy in simple recognition (Green, Johnston, & Ruthruff, 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of auditory distraction on retrieval of visual memories

Wais

Gazzaley

2011

Psychon Bull Rev

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Recent research has revealed that the presence of irrelevant visual information during retrieval of long-term memories diminishes recollection of task-relevant visual details. Here, we explored the impact of irrelevant auditory information on remembering task-relevant visual details by probing recall of the same previously viewed images while participants were in complete silence, exposed to white noise, or exposed to ambient sounds recorded at a busy café. The presence of auditory distraction diminished objective recollection of goal-relevant details, relative to the silence and white noise conditions. Critically, a comparison with results from a previous study using visual distractors showed equivalent effects for auditory and visual distraction. These findings suggest that disruption of recollection by external stimuli is a domain-general phenomenon produced by interference between resourcelimited, top-down mechanisms that guide the selection of mnemonic details and control processes that mediate our interactions with external distractors.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of auditory distraction on retrieval of visual memories

Wais

Gazzaley

2011

Psychon Bull Rev

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“…We believe that to prove that entrainment is due to general attention, the effect of entrainment should not only be present in tasks that require an immediate response, but it should also translate to secondary tasks, for instance to memory performance. Memory in general has been shown to be affected by general attention manipulations (Fernandes & Moscovitch, 2000;Mulligan & Hartman, 1996;Shtyrov, Kujala, & Pulvermüller, 2010;Voss, Baym, & Paller, 2008; see also Jacobson, Goren, Lavidor, & Levy, 2012), and modulations of memory for simple auditory stimuli by a preceding rhythm has been invoked by Large and Jones (1999) as support for the DAT, rendering a visual memory task a good candidate to test whether rhythmic entrainment also affects general attention as predicted by the dominant interpretation of the DAT.The DAT offers no neurophysiological account of how modulations of "attentional energy" through auditory entrainment affect cognition such as memory processes. We speculate that auditory entrainment could influence memory in a similar way to other attention manipulations.…”

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confidence: 99%

Entrainment to an auditory signal: Is attention involved?

Kunert¹,

Jongman²

2017

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Many natural auditory signals, including music and language, change periodically. The effect of such auditory rhythms on the brain is unclear however. One widely held view, dynamic attending theory, proposes that the attentional system entrains to the rhythm and increases attention at moments of rhythmic salience. In support, 2 experiments reported here show reduced response times to visual letter strings shown at auditory rhythm peaks, compared with rhythm troughs. However, we argue that an account invoking the entrainment of general attention should further predict rhythm entrainment to also influence memory for visual stimuli. In 2 pseudoword memory experiments we find evidence against this prediction. Whether a pseudoword is shown during an auditory rhythm peak or not is irrelevant for its later recognition memory in silence. Other attention manipulations, dividing attention and focusing attention, did result in a memory effect. This raises doubts about the suggested attentional nature of rhythm entrainment. We interpret our findings as support for auditory rhythm perception being based on auditory-motor entrainment, not general attention entrainment. Keywords: attention, entrainment, rhythm, memory, word memorySupplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000246.suppMany natural auditory signals change periodically, such as cricket chirps, bird song, and human speech and music. Many nonhuman animals have been found to use auditory periodicities to entrain their motor behavior to an underlying beat (Schachner, Brady, Pepperberg, & Hauser, 2009). What is the effect of auditory temporal regularities on humans? One widely influential theory suggests that the fluctuations inherent in "attentional energy" are affected. According to this dynamic attending theory (DAT; Jones, Boltz, & Kidd, 1982;Large & Jones, 1999), rhythmic perceptual input leads to the optimal allocation of attention: attentional fluctuations peak at the right moment when important input is expected. These attentional dynamics are crucial for music (Jones & Boltz, 1989) and speech comprehension (Pitt & Samuel, 1990). In the present experiments we investigate whether an auditory rhythm indeed affects attention, an effect which should be visible on a variety of tasks. To foreshadow our results, we find an effect for entrainment during immediate judgment tasks, but no effect for memory tasks. These findings suggest that auditory entrainment is actually quite limited. We propose that rhythmic entrainment may not affect general attention as suggested by the dominant interpretation of DAT, but instead results from auditory-motor entrainment.The DAT has been very influential as evidenced by more than 800 citations for two key papers each (per a Google Scholar search in March 2016; Jones & Boltz, 1989;Large & Jones, 1999). One behavioral demonstration of auditory entrainment is reported by Bolger, Trost, & Schön (2013). They asked participants to listen to a simple rhythm while performing a simple visual judgment task in which participants are a...

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“…The three-odd task is something of a standard divided-attention manipulation in memory research (e.g., Craik, 1982;Fernandes & Moscovitch, 2000;Gabrieli et al, 1999;Jacoby, 1991;Jacoby et al, 1989;Mulligan, 1998Mulligan, , 2003aSchmitter-Edgecombe, 1999). More importantly for present purposes, this DA manipulation is known to leave priming unaffected in visual perceptual identification and word-fragment completion (Mulligan, 2003a;Mulligan & Hartman, 1996).…”

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confidence: 99%

The effects of divided attention on auditory priming

2007

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The concept of attention plays a central role in theories of memory, a view supported by a long history of findings that attentional state during encoding affects later memory performance (e.g., Broadbent, 1958;Cowan, 1995;Norman, 1969). Traditional research on this topic has focused on explicit memory. More recently, researchers have addressed the relationship between attention and implicit memory, spurred by the well-documented dissociations between implicit and explicit memory (Mulligan, 2003b;Roediger & McDermott, 1993), as well as the possibility that attention during encoding may not be as crucial to implicit memory as it is to explicit memory.Several initial studies of attention and implicit memory reported the rather startling result that dividing attention reduced explicit test performance but left implicit tests unaffected (e.g., Bentin, Kutas, & Hillyard, 1995;Mulligan & Hartman, 1996;Parkin, Reid, & Russo, 1990;Russo & Parkin, 1993; SchmitterEdgecombe, 1996). Other early studies demonstrated that retention of very poorly attended stimuli is more likely to be detected with implicit than explicit memory tests (e.g., Bornstein, Leone, & Galley, 1987;Eich, 1984;Jelicic, Bonke, Wolters, & Phaf, 1992;Mandler, Nakamura, & Van Zandt, 1987;Merikle & Reingold, 1991; cf. Berry, Shanks, & Henson, 2006). Such findings imply that attention plays a larger role in encoding for explicit than implicit memory. Other researchers have gone farther in interpreting these results, proposing that implicit memory is chiefly the result of automatic encoding processes (the automaticity hypothesis, e.g., Aloisi, McKone, & Heubeck, 2004;Bentin et al., 1995;Shallice et al., 1994;Szymanski & MacLeod, 1996;Wolters & Prinsen, 1997). Much subsequent research on this topic took place under the rubric of the transfer-appropriateprocessing (TAP) view of implicit and explicit memory (e.g., Roediger, 1990;Roediger & McDermott, 1993), which provides a more differentiated view based on the distinction between conceptual and perceptual priming. This view suggests that implicit tests drawing heavily on conceptual processes should depend heavily on attention during encoding. However, perceptual priming tasks, sensitive to relatively automatic perceptual encoding processes (Roediger, 1990), should be little affected by manipulations of attention (see Mulligan & Hartman, 1996, for a more detailed development of the TAP predictions). With respect to conceptual implicit memory, these expectations are largely borne out: divided attention typically reduces conceptual priming (see Mulligan & Brown, 2003, for a review).Studies of perceptual implicit tests, however, have produced mixed results. As noted above, some of the initial studies on this topic found no effect of divided attention on perceptual priming despite robust effects on explicit memory (e.g., Mulligan & Hartman, 1996;Russo & Parkin, 1993). For example, in Mulligan and Hartman (1996), study words were presented visually under one of two conditions. In the full attention (FA) condition, th...

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Divided attention and memory: Evidence of substantial interference effects at retrieval and encoding.

Cited by 264 publications

References 42 publications

The impact of auditory distraction on retrieval of visual memories

The impact of auditory distraction on retrieval of visual memories

Entrainment to an auditory signal: Is attention involved?

The effects of divided attention on auditory priming

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