Task-specific auditory distraction in serial recall and mental arithmetic

Abstract

Previous studies suggest that task-irrelevant changing-state sound interferes specifically with the processing of serial order information in the focal task (e.g., serial recall from short-term memory), whereas a deviant sound in the auditory background is supposed to divert central attention, thus producing distraction in various types of cognitive tasks. Much of the evidence for this distinction rests on the observed dissociations in auditory distraction between serial and non-serial short-term memory tasks. In this study, both the changing-state effect and the deviation effect were contrasted between serial digit recall and mental arithmetic tasks. In three experiments (two conducted online), changing-state sound was found to disrupt serial recall, but it did not lead to a general decrement in performance in different mental arithmetic tasks. In contrast, a deviant voice in the stream of irrelevant speech sounds did not cause reliable distraction in serial recall and simple addition/subtraction tasks, but it did disrupt a more demanding mental arithmetic task. Specifically, the evaluation of math equations (multiplication and addition/subtraction), which was combined with a pair-associate memory task to increase the task demand, was found to be susceptible to auditory distraction in participants who did not serially rehearse the pair-associates. Together, the results support the assumption that the interference produced by changing-state sound is highly specific to tasks that require serial-order processing, whereas auditory deviants may cause attentional capture primarily in highly demanding cognitive tasks (e.g., mental arithmetic) that cannot be solved through serial rehearsal.

Revisiting the Deviation Effects of Irrelevant Sound on Serial and Nonserial Tasks

“…We should note that Kattner et al (2022) did not observe the deviation effect not only in the mental arithmetic task but even in the serial recall task, which is inconsistent with earlier studies (e.g., Hughes et al,2007;Hughes, Hurlstone, Marsh, Jones, Vachon,2013;Vachon et al,2017;Marsh, Campbell, Vachon, Taylor, Hughes, 2020). They stated the possibility that some procedural aspects of their experiments led to the lack of the deviation effect.…”

“…Second, experiments 2 and 3 of their study were online experiments in which the experimental environment could not be fully controlled. Note that the changing-state effect was observed only in the serial recall task, as expected in Kattner et al (2022).…”

“…Recently, Kattner, Hanl, Paul, Ellermeier (2022) considered it important to demonstrate the difference in task specificity with other non-serial tasks than the missing-item tasks. They used a mental arithmetic task in which a digit and an operator were presented alternately on the screen, as the nonserial task.…”

“…First, the steady-state sound trials and the changing-state sound trials were presented randomly within the same block. The fact that the type of irrelevant sound was not fixed within the block may have made the predictive model of background sounds less constrained (Kattner et al, 2022), resulting in inconspicuousness of deviant sounds. Second, experiments 2 and 3 of their study were online experiments in which the experimental environment could not be fully controlled.…”

Differential Effects of Task-Irrelevant Monaural and Binaural Classroom Scenarios on Children’s and Adults’ Speech Perception, Listening Comprehension, and Visual–Verbal Short-Term Memory

“…Concerning the former, it has consistently been shown that children’s language comprehension is more impaired than adults’ by noise and reverberation [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ]. Concerning non-auditory tasks, findings are less consistent for complex academic tasks such as reading and numeracy [ 14 , 15 , 16 ] (for review, see [ 17 ], but reliable noise-induced performance decrements have been reported for children’s visual–verbal short-term memory [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ].…”