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This study examines the effect of irrelevant speech effect on a serial recall task, focusing on individual difference indexes, such as introversion/extraversion, field dependence/independence, and reading span. A foreign language (Spanish) and pink noise were used as auditory distractor stimuli. The results demonstrate that the irrelevant speech effect is robust and causes a fixed increase in the number of serial recall errors, irrespective of the individual difference indexes, such as introversion/ extraversion, field dependence/independence. On the other hand, the serial recall performance itself was related to both introversion/extraversion and field dependence/independence. The results are interpreted as suggesting that while the irrelevant speech effect mainly reflects the functioning of phonological loop, the performance of serial recall may depend more on the functioning of the central executive, which may differ between introverts and extraverts and between field dependents and field independents. Further examination from this perspective may serve to clarify the mechanism by which the irrelevant speech effect occurs and its relation to the individual differences of performance in various cognitive tasks.

This study examines the irrelevant speech effect (ISE) and the effects of individual differences (introversion/extroversion and field dependence/independence: FDI) on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) and the Stroop Test. In Experiment 1, irrelevant speech and silence groups performed the WCST. Unlike the ISE, FDI affected four WCST indexes (CA, TE, PE [Milner], and PE [Nelson]) but did not affect the WCST DMS index, which shows the difficulty of maintaining concepts. However, the ISE was observed with the DMS. In Experiment 2, WCST data were applied under a noise condition. In Experiment 3, the Stroop Test revealed that individual differences affect the amount of conflict, unlike the ISE. In general, the ISE is understood to relate to the phonological loop of the working memory, with individual differences related to the central executive system. We believe that the WCST involves the central executive system and phonological loop, while the Stroop Test primarily involves the central executive system.

This article aimed to investigate whether auditory stimuli disrupt the performance of a text recognition task (Experiment1) and a text recall task (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, Spanish speech sounds that disrupted the serial recall task (Miyahara & Goshiki, 2004) were presented during the learning phase of the task. The Spanish speech had a reduced d', which indicates that the text recognition task was also disrupted. In Experiment 2, Japanese speech sounds or office noise were presented during either the learning only phase, recall only phase, or during both the phases. The results were that both types of auditory stimuli could disrupt the text recall task, and this effect was independent of the meaning of the speech sounds and the presenting phase. Our results could be interpreted by Cowan's model (1995Cowan's model ( , 1999 with the inclusion of two modifications.

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