Habituation of the Irrelevant Sound Effect: Evidence for an Attentional Theory of Short-Term Memory Disruption

Autor/inn/en	Bell, Raoul; Roer, Jan P.; Dentale, Sandra; Buchner, Axel
Titel	Habituation of the Irrelevant Sound Effect: Evidence for an Attentional Theory of Short-Term Memory Disruption
Quelle	In: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 38 (2012) 6, S.1542-1557 (16 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0278-7393
DOI	10.1037/a0028459
Schlagwörter	Evidence; Recall (Psychology); Habituation; Listening; Short Term Memory; Attention Control; Auditory Stimuli; Task Analysis; Prediction; Acoustics; Speech; Foreign Countries; Germany + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Evidenz; Abberufung; Hörvorgang; Zuhören; Kurzzeitgedächtnis; Aufmerksamkeitstest; Auditive Stimulation; Aufgabenanalyse; Vorhersage; Akustik; Speaking; Sprechen; Ausland; Deutschland
Abstract	Immediate serial recall is seriously disrupted by to-be-ignored sound. According to the embedded-processes model, auditory distractors elicit attentional orienting that draws processing resources away from the recall task. The model predicts that interference should be attenuated after repeated exposure to the auditory distractors. Previous failures to observe evidence for habituation can be explained by assuming that habituation to complex distractor features depends on the availability of working memory resources. Here we demonstrate that the irrelevant sound effect is attenuated after passive listening to the auditory distractors during a preexposure phase prior to the serial recall task. Experiment 1 shows that the irrelevant sound effect is abolished after 20 min of passive listening to the distractor speech. Experiments 2-4 show that irrelevant sound interference is significantly reduced after listening to distractors for 45 s. As predicted by the habituation hypothesis, an attenuation of interference occurs only when the distractor material matches the material played in the preexposure phase (Experiment 5). The results support an attentional conceptualization of the irrelevant sound effect. (Contains 5 figures, 3 tables, and 2 footnotes.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10