The unattended speech effect: Perception or memory?

Abstract

Broadbent (1983) has suggested that the influence of unattended speech on immediate serial recall is a perceptual phenomenon rather than a memory phenomenon. In order to test this, subjects were required to classify visually presented pairs of consonants on the basis of either case or rhyme. They were tested both in silence and against a background of continuous spoken Arabic presented at 75 dB(A). No effect of unattended speech was observed on either the speed or accuracy of processing. A further study required subjects to decide whether visually presented nonwords were homophonous with real words. Again, performance was not impaired by unattended speech, although a clear effect was observed on an immediate serial memory task. Our results give no support to the perceptual interpretation of the unattended speech effect.

Cross-modal, auditory-visual Stroop interference: A reply to Cowan and Barron (1987)

“…Thus they are completely consistent with the findings of Baddeley and Salame (1986) and inconsistent with the position of Cowan and Barron (1987). Although the data reported here do not identify why Cowan and Barron's findings may be misleading, they do question the reliability of their data.…”

“…Rehearsal of the phonological code for maintenance purposes was not required, however. In this respect, Cowan and Barron's experiment resembled Experiments 2 and 3 in Baddeleyand Salame's (1986) paper. One possibly important methodological difference is that Cowan and Barron required spoken output, whereas Baddeley and Salame did not.…”

“…Experiment lb required whispered responses, but nevertheless the use of the vocal apparatus was necessary. In this respect, the two experiments differed from those reported by Baddeley and Salame (1986). For this reason, for Experiment 2, a computerized version of the Stroop task was developed, which required nonvocal "same" and "different" judgments to be made.…”

“…Conversely, visual information that does not require rehearsal, and therefore the development of a phonological code, should not be susceptible to the interfering effect of irrelevant speech. Evidence supporting this line of reasoning was presented by Baddeley and Salame (1986). In Experiment 1, they required subjects to classify visually presented pairs of consonants on the basis of case while listening to spoken Arabic.…”

Synchronized brain activity during rehearsal and short-term memory disruption by irrelevant speech is affected by recall mode

“…Numerous 30 behavioral studies have revealed the distracting effect of 31 auditorily presented (and to be ignored) material on short-term 32 retention of verbal items with normal speech having the most 33 influential effect, compared to other materials such as music or 34 noise (e.g. Baddeley and Salamé, 1986 Baddeley, 38 1982, 1989). Several psychological theories on the nature of 39 the irrelevant speech effect exist at present (Baddeley, 2003;40 Jones and Macken, 1993;Jones et al, 1992;Neath, 2000).…”