Interference by process, not content, determines semantic auditory distraction

Marsh, John E. orcid iconORCID: 0000-0002-9494-1287, Hughes, Robert W. and Jones, Dylan M. (2009) Interference by process, not content, determines semantic auditory distraction. Cognition, 110 (1). pp. 23-38. ISSN 0010-0277

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2008.08.003

Abstract

Distraction by irrelevant background sound of visually-based cognitive tasks illustrates the vulnerability of attentional selectivity across modalities. Four experiments centred on auditory distraction during tests of memory for visually-presented semantic information. Meaningful irrelevant speech disrupted the free recall of semantic category-exemplars more than meaningless irrelevant sound (Experiment 1). This effect was exacerbated when the irrelevant speech was semantically related to the to-be-remembered material (Experiment 2). Importantly, however, these effects of meaningfulness and semantic relatedness were shown to arise only when instructions emphasized recall by category rather than by serial order (Experiments 3 and 4). The results favor a process-oriented, rather than a structural, approach to the breakdown of attentional selectivity and forgetting: performance is impaired by the similarity of process brought to bear on the relevant and irrelevant material, not the similarity in item content.


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