The effects of irrelevant speech on immediate free recall

Salamé, Pierre; Baddeley, Alan

doi:10.3758/bf03334073

Cited by 67 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 14 publications

(15 reference statements)

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“…The results of the present experiments contrast with those of Salamé and Baddeley (1990), who observed no ISE in a free recall task. The results of Experiment 1 do replicate LeCompte's (1994) findings of an ISE using several nonserial recognition paradigms.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 56%

“…A handful of studies have addressed this issue by examining the ISE in free recall or recognition tasks. The first test of whether or not serial rehearsal is required for observing the ISE came from Salamé and Baddeley (1990), who examined the effect of irrelevant speech in an immediate free recall paradigm. Participants did not show an ISE when they were permitted to report 16-item visual word lists in any order they wished.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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New considerations for the cognitive locus of impairment in the irrelevant-sound effect

Stokes

Arnell

2012

Mem Cogn

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The finding that serial recall performance for visually presented items is impaired by concurrently presented taskirrelevant speech or sounds is referred to as the irrelevantspeech/-sound effect (ISE). Substantial evidence has indicated that the impairment of serial rehearsal can result in an ISE, and this may be explained by several models. The present series of experiments has demonstrated an ISE in surprise nonserial recognition tasks in which participants were unaware of the need to maintain a large number of visual items for a later memory test, suggesting that neither the rehearsal nor maintenance of order information is necessary for observing the ISE. This effect was observed for both steady-state and changingstate irrelevant sounds, suggesting that the present results do not derive from a confusion of order information, but instead provide evidence that identity representations can also be impaired by irrelevant sound.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 56%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New considerations for the cognitive locus of impairment in the irrelevant-sound effect

Stokes

Arnell

2012

Mem Cogn

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“…So, for example, if the subject is given a list from a fixed set (such as days of the week) from which an item is missing and is then required to report the missing item, there is no effect of irrelevant speech (D. M. Jones & Macken, 1993;. Similarly, Salame and Baddeley (1990) found no irrelevant speech effects with free recall. Also, Morris and D. M. Jones (1990a) demonstrated that memory for the position of dots was not disrupted by irrelevant speech, a fmding that can be accommodatedby supposing that spatial material is stored on a visuospatial scratch pad rather than in phonological working memory.…”

Section: Is the Effect One Of Distraction?mentioning

confidence: 92%

“…In this case, the competition between pointers is minimized, which in turn accounts for the minimal disruptive effect on serial recall caused by irrelevant streams consisting of one repeated item. We therefore expect the disruption by irrelevant speech to be confined to serial recall and absent from tasks that demand free recall (D. M. Jones & Macken, 1993;Salame & Baddeley, 1990).…”

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confidence: 99%

Disruption of visual short-term memory by changing-state auditory stimuli: The role of segmentation

1993

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Typically, serial recall performance can be disrupted by the presence of an irrelevant stream of background auditory stimulation, but only if the background stream changes over time (the auditory changing-state effect). It was hypothesized that segmentation of the auditory stream is necessary for changing state to be signified. In Experiment 1, continuous random pitch glides failed to disrupt serial recall, but glides interrupted regularly by silence brought about the usual auditory changing-state effect. In Experiment 2, a physically continuous stream of synthesized vowel sounds was found to have disruptive effects. In Experiment 3, the technique of auditory induction showed that preattentive organization rather than critical features of the sound could account for the disruption by glides. With pitch glides, silence plays a preeminent role in the temporal segmentation of the sound stream, but speech contains correlated time-varying changes in frequency and amplitude that make silent intervals superfluous.Irrelevant background speech disrupts serial short-term memory for material presented visually (see D. M. Jones & Morris, 1992, in press, for reviews). A reasonably clear picture of the features of the task and of the speech that elicits this effect is now emerging, as are the general implications for our understanding of attentional factors in memory (see D. M. Jones & Broadbent, 1991). Two views of this disruption are contrasted here. One is that the extent of disruption depends on the degree to which the sound resembles speech. Salame and Baddeley (1989) have proposed that the effects of speech and nonspeech sounds on serial recall could be understood in terms of a filter or detector system that selectively passes into memory sounds that resemble speech. We wish to put forward an alternative model, the changing-state hypothesis, whose pivotal feature is that the sound has to show particular variation over its time course (see D. M. Jones, in press). Our primary concern in the present paper is to refine the notion of change within the auditory changing-state concept; our secondary purpose is to assess the view that sound has to be "speech-like" before it disrupts serial recall. The purpose of the experimental work reported here is to identify cues common to speech and nonspeech stimuli that nevertheless may serve as the basis for disruption. Specifically, interest is attached to the role of segmentation in signifying changing state, and to the ways this may lead to disruption of recall by both speech and Thanks are due Richard Blight for his general help in setting up the equipment. Helen Bowman and Craig Steel ran some of the subjects.

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“…This phenomenon, assumed to be modulated by the interference between the obligatory processing of order in the irrelevant sound and the deliberate seriation processing involved in the focal task (e.g., Jones & Macken, 1993;Jones & Tremblay, 2000;Marsh et al, 2009), typically disappears when the focal task does not encourage serial rehearsal (e.g., Beaman & Jones, 1997;Hughes et al, 2007;Marsh, Hughes, & Jones, 2008;Salamé & Baddeley, 1990).…”

Section: Implications For the Understanding Of Auditory Attentional Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attentional capture by deviant sounds: A noncontingent form of auditory distraction?

Vachon

Labonté

Marsh

2017

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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The effects of irrelevant speech on immediate free recall

Cited by 67 publications

References 14 publications

New considerations for the cognitive locus of impairment in the irrelevant-sound effect

New considerations for the cognitive locus of impairment in the irrelevant-sound effect

Disruption of visual short-term memory by changing-state auditory stimuli: The role of segmentation

Attentional capture by deviant sounds: A noncontingent form of auditory distraction?

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