No abstract

Subjects were required to reproduce in order a sequence of five letters; the set of letters was known so only memory for sequence was tested. Experiment 1 showed that suppressing subvocal rehearsal by saying 'the' continously during list presentation and until recall depressed performance to the same level on acoustically confusable and non-confusable lists. Listening to 85 dBC white noise during list presentation improved performance on acoustically confusable lists in non-suppression conditions and had no effect in suppression conditions. The result refutes the hypothesis that noise suppresses inner speech. Expts 2, 3 and 4 showed that articulating the items aloud during list presentation and until recall improved performance when lists were presented at 1/2 s per item and depressed it when they were presented at 2 s per item. Improvement occurred under 85 dBC white noise in Expts 2 and 4, but the improvement was only significant in non-articulation conditions. It is suggested that noise increases subvocal articulation and that both noise and articulation increase maintenance rehearsal at the expense of elaboration rehearsal.

Subjects were shown either a list of non‐associated words or a list on which words could be organized into related groups. In Expt 1 either no orienting instructions were given or subjects had to rate the words for Pleasantness (semantic orienting task). The three‐way interaction of noise x list type x orienting task was significant. Eighty‐five dBC white noise compared with 65 dBC improved performance on the non‐associated list with no orienting task and increased recall in the original sequence, but had the reverse effect with semantic orienting. With the associated list noise had no marked effects in the non‐orienting condition, and improved performance in the orienting condition. It is concluded that in noise maintenance rehearsal tends to be adopted unless instructions induce an alternative strategy, and in the latter event noise reinforces use of the alternative strategy. In Expt 2, all subjects carried out a physical orienting task, rating the words for the sounds they contained. Noise aided performance on the non‐associated list and impaired it on the associated list. This result is taken to be compatible with the above interpretation of noise effects.