What causes auditory distraction?

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

“…The possibilities that susceptibility to the changingstate effect is a function of order processes (Macken et al, 2009) and that susceptibility to the cocktail party phenomenon is a function of WMC fit nicely with the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction (Hughes et al, 2007). To recollect, this account proposes that the deviation effect is caused by attentional capture, and if WMC reflects some general pool of attentional resources (see, e.g., Kane et al, 2001), then high WMC should attenuate the deviation effect.…”

“…As can be seen in Figure 1, the deviant reduced recall across most serial positions. A 2 (background condition: steady-state vs. deviant) 8 (serial position) ANOVA revealed significant main effects of background condition [F(1,39) The common way to measure individual differences in susceptibility to auditory distraction is to take the difference between the scores in the control and distraction conditions (Ellermeier & Zimmer, 1997;Macken et al, 2009). …”

“…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. To support this claim, Macken, Phelps, and Jones (2009) presented participants with pairs of sound patterns and asked them to judge whether or not the two patterns in each pair were the same. The authors argued that the pattern-matching task measures the capability to automatically process order information in sound sequences, and they were able to show that the participants who performed well on the pattern-When the participants had recalled the digits, they pressed a button that initiated the next trial.…”

Distraction in verbal short-term memory: Insights from developmental differences

“…A possible explanation for this discrepancy, however, is that older adults also exhibit a deficit in the integration of successive sounds into a stream (Trainor & Trehub, 1989). To the extent that sequential sound integration is a key underpinning of auditory distraction (see Macken, 2014;Macken, Phelps, & Jones, 2009), such a deficit would reduce the potential for distraction. Thus, poorer top-down attentional control in older adults may in effect be 'compensated for' by poorer bottom-up sound processing.…”

Interference of Speech and Interior Noise of Chinese High-Speed Trains with Task Performance

“…However, the position of source and receiver is more critical for interfering speech, as the sound intensity of the interfering speech decreases with increasing distance. Longer distance can reduce auditory distraction by smoothing the perceived variation of sound characters [23,24,25] and by decreasing the signal-to-noise ratio [26,27]. Auditory attention is influenced by other factors such as reverberation [28], the familiarity with the languages of the interfering speech [27,29,30] and combined stimuli.…”