Background white noise and speech facilitate visual working memory

Abstract

Phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad have been proposed as two independent systems in working memory (WM). Previous studies suggest that background speech but not white noise declines performance of verbal WM.However, whether the background sounds influence visual WM remains unclear. In the present study, participants performed an orientation reproduction task while we played background speech or white noise.Electrodermal activity (EDA) and Electromyography (EMG) were recorded simultaneously. Results indicated that both background speech and white noise significantly improved visual WM performance, and such behavioral enhancement was significantly correlated with changes in physiological signals linked with arousal or emotion expression. Taken together, our results suggest that the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad is not fully independent and background speech and white noise facilitate visual WM through physiological changes in arousal and emotion expression.

Auditory accessory stimulus boosts pupil-linked arousal and reduces choice bias

“…Second, the auditory white noise (presented at 70 dB) might be intrinsically arousing, irrespective of the inability of subjects to predict when the sound will be presented. Consistent with this idea, continuously presented background auditory white noise also affects human task performance (Corcoran, 1962; Han et al, 2021; Söderlund et al, 2010). Future research should investigate if the bias-suppressing effect of the accessory stimulus also occurs during more frequent accessory stimuli, for example on 25% of 50% of trials (Lippert et al, 2007; Tona et al, 2016).…”