The role of habituation and attentional orienting in the disruption of short-term memory performance

Abstract

A series of experiments explored habituation and dishabituation to repeated auditory distractors. Participants memorised lists of visually presented items in silence or while ignoring continuously presented auditory distractors. No habituation could be observed, in that the size of the auditory distractor effect did not decrease during the experiment. However, there was evidence for attentional orienting when novel auditory material was presented after a long period of repetitive stimulation, in that a change of distractors was associated with a temporary decrease in recall performance. The results are most consistent with theoretical accounts that claim that the auditory distractor effect is caused primarily by automatic interference, but that still allow attention to play a limited role in the short-term maintenance of information.

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

“…The present results-particularly those from Experiment 2-also provide a further novel line of evidence for the key claim of the duplex-mechanism account (e.g., Hughes et al, 2007Hughes et al, , 2013) that the changing-state effect in serial short-term memory tasks is not due to attentional diversion, contrary to several unitary accounts of auditory distraction (Cowan, 1995;Chein & Fiez, 2010;Bell, Dentale, Buchner, & Mayr, 2010;Röer, Bell, & Buchner, 2015;Röer, Bell, Dentale, & Buchner, 2011). The unitary view supposes that rather than interfering specifically with serial rehearsal, changing-state stimuli disrupt performance because each change causes an involuntary orienting response (cf.…”

Distraction of Mental Arithmetic by Background Speech

“…The finding of a difference between ascending and descending numbers condition is more consistent with the attentional capture account (Bell et al, 2012;Cowan, 1995;Röer, Bell, Dentale, & Buchner, 2011) than with the interference-by-content account on the assumption that ascending numbers may be regarded as more task-relevant and more familiar than descending sequences whereby the attentional system is selectively more responsive to this input. The current experiment is inconclusive as to whether the competition-by-action or the attention capture account is the better explanation.…”

Vulnerability to the Irrelevant Sound Effect in Adult ADHD

“…Within the ISE paradigm, performance on the serial recall task in quiet provides a basic measure of STM capacity, while the addition of background sound allows us to examine the ability to inhibit irrelevant stimuli and to attend selectively. Moreover, the ISE paradigm usually causes no habituation in the normal population, because the negative impact of to-be-ignored irrelevant sound is stable and persists over time (Roer et al, 2011;Tremblay & Jones, 1998). Thus, unlike conventional neuropsychological tests, the ISE paradigm allows one to assess the capacity of selective and sustained attention of adults Adult ADHD and ISE 5 with ADHD by evaluating performance over the course of the whole task, whilst maintaining difficulty level.…”