The cocktail party phenomenon revisited: The importance of working memory capacity

Abstract

Wood and Cowan (1995) replicated and extended Moray's (1959) investigation of the cocktail party phenomenon, which refers to a situation in which one can attend to only part of a noisy environment, yet highly pertinent stimuli such as one's own name can suddenly capture attention. Both of these previous investigations have shown that approximately 33% of subjects report hearing their own name in an unattended, irrelevant message. Here we show that subjects who detect their name in the irrelevant message have relatively low working-memory capacities, suggesting that they have difficulty blocking out, or inhibiting, distracting information.

The Irrelevant Sound Phenomenon Revisited: What Role for Working Memory Capacity?

“…The failure to find any connection between span and susceptibility to irrelevant sound interference raises questions concerning how these data are to be reconciled with those of Conway et al (2001). In the study by Conway et al, OSPAN differentiated between participants processing their own name when presented on an unattended channel (low-span participants) and those who showed no evidence of such processing (high-span participants).…”

“…After the participants had completed 15 trials under the first presentation condition (aloud or quiet), they were asked to complete the final 15 trials using the remaining presentation mode. The scoring procedure for the OSPAN tasks was identical to that of Conway et al (2001). The OSPAN score was the cumulative number of words recalled in those series that were perfectly recalled in correct serial order, with no points awarded for imperfect recall of a series.…”

“…The results of the study so far can be summarized as follows: Working memory span, as a measure, is susceptible to variations in the means by which the measure is administered (Experiment 1), but these fluctuations are unlikely to account for any differences between the sensitivity to the cocktail party effect in the study by Conway et al (2001). Contrary to predictions, there is no sign that ability to resist the disruptive effects of irrelevant speech (Experiment 2) is in any way influenced or mediated by working memory span as measured by the OSPAN technique.…”

Argument Strength and the Persuasiveness of Stories

“…Thus, individuals lower in working memory capacity may not be able to effectively suppress nonrelevant information while focusing on and deliberately elaborating the content of a presented persuasive message. Individuals low in working memory capacity are more vulnerable to interference effects, which results in weaker performance in secondary tasks compared with individuals high in working memory capacity (e.g., Conway, Cowan, & Bunting, 2001; Kane & Engle, 2000; Rosen & Engle, 1998). However, an extensive literature research did not yield any studies in which working memory capacity was empirically related to argument strength in the context of persuasion, neither for non-narrative nor for narrative texts.…”

Nile red fluorescence screening facilitating neutral lipid phenotype determination in budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe

“…3; Sörqvist, Stenfelt, & Rönnberg, 2012), and they show a greater resistance to attention capture ( Fig. 4; Sörqvist, 2010), possibly by means of active inhibition of taskirrelevant processing (Conway, Cowan, & Bunting, 2001;Marsh, Beaman, Hughes, & Jones, 2012;Marsh, Sörqvist, Hodgetts, Beaman, & Jones, 2015). …”