Auditory Distraction Can be Studied Online! A Direct Comparison between In-Person and Online Experimentation.

Abstract

The irrelevant sound effect (ISE) refers to the well-replicated finding that the presence of to-be-ignored sound disrupts short-term memory for serially-presented visual items. This phenomenon has proven useful in evaluating the structure, function, and development of short-term memory as well as characterising the interface between perceptual and mnemonic processing and providing recommendations for optimal working environments. Indeed, the ISE has achieved status as an important benchmark finding within cognitive psychology. This preregistered report focused on a methodological examination of the paradigm typically relied upon to study the ISE and sought to determine whether the ISE can be reliably studied using the increasingly popular method of online experiments. The results demonstrated that key signature effects of auditory distraction (the changing-state effect and the steady-state effect) can be successfully reproduced in online settings. There were no differences between Psychology students tested online and Psychology students tested in person. Participants from an online panel showed the same effects as Psychology students, but the effects were somewhat smaller in size. Our results confirmed the viability of online collection of data for auditory distraction research and provided important insights for the accumulation and maintenance of high data quality in internet-based experimentation.