Cognitive control of auditory distraction: Impact of task difficulty, foreknowledge, and working memory capacity supports duplex-mechanism account
Authors: Hughes, R.W., Hurlstone, M.J., Marsh, J.E., Jones, D.M. and Vachon, F.
Journal: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance
Volume: 39
Issue: 2
Pages: 539-553
ISSN: 0096-1523
DOI: 10.1037/a0029064
Abstract:The influence of top-down cognitive control on 2 putatively distinct forms of distraction was investigated. Attentional capture by a task-irrelevant auditory deviation (e.g.,a female-spoken token following a sequence of male-spoken tokens)-as indexed by its disruption of a visually presented recall task-was abolished when focal-task engagement was promoted either by increasing the difficulty of encoding the visual to-be-remembered stimuli (by reducing their perceptual discriminability; Experiments 1 and 2) or by providing foreknowledge of an imminent deviation (Experiment 2). In contrast, distraction from continuously changing auditory stimuli ("changing-state effect") was not modulated by task-difficulty or foreknowledge (Experiment 3). We also confirmed that individual differences inworking memory capacity-typically associated with maintaining task-engagement in the faceof distraction-predict the magnitude of the deviation effect, but not the changing-state effect. This convergence of experimental and psychometric data strongly supports a duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction: Auditory attentional capture (deviation effect) is open to top-down cognitive control, whereas auditory distraction caused by direct conflict between the sound and focal-task processing (changing-state effect) is relativelyimmune to such control. © 2012 American Psychological Association.
Source: Scopus
Cognitive control of auditory distraction: impact of task difficulty, foreknowledge, and working memory capacity supports duplex-mechanism account.
Authors: Hughes, R.W., Hurlstone, M.J., Marsh, J.E., Vachon, F. and Jones, D.M.
Journal: J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform
Volume: 39
Issue: 2
Pages: 539-553
eISSN: 1939-1277
DOI: 10.1037/a0029064
Abstract:The influence of top-down cognitive control on 2 putatively distinct forms of distraction was investigated. Attentional capture by a task-irrelevant auditory deviation (e.g., a female-spoken token following a sequence of male-spoken tokens)-as indexed by its disruption of a visually presented recall task-was abolished when focal-task engagement was promoted either by increasing the difficulty of encoding the visual to-be-remembered stimuli (by reducing their perceptual discriminability; Experiments 1 and 2) or by providing foreknowledge of an imminent deviation (Experiment 2). In contrast, distraction from continuously changing auditory stimuli ("changing-state effect") was not modulated by task-difficulty or foreknowledge (Experiment 3). We also confirmed that individual differences in working memory capacity--typically associated with maintaining task-engagement in the face of distraction--predict the magnitude of the deviation effect, but not the changing-state effect. This convergence of experimental and psychometric data strongly supports a duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction: Auditory attentional capture (deviation effect) is open to top-down cognitive control, whereas auditory distraction caused by direct conflict between the sound and focal-task processing (changing-state effect) is relatively immune to such control.
Source: PubMed
Cognitive control of auditory distraction: impact of task difficulty, foreknowledge, and working memory capacity supports duplex-mechanism account.
Authors: Hughes, R.W., Hurlstone, M.J., Marsh, J.E., Vachon, F. and Jones, D.M.
Journal: Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance
Volume: 39
Issue: 2
Pages: 539-553
eISSN: 1939-1277
ISSN: 0096-1523
DOI: 10.1037/a0029064
Abstract:The influence of top-down cognitive control on 2 putatively distinct forms of distraction was investigated. Attentional capture by a task-irrelevant auditory deviation (e.g., a female-spoken token following a sequence of male-spoken tokens)-as indexed by its disruption of a visually presented recall task-was abolished when focal-task engagement was promoted either by increasing the difficulty of encoding the visual to-be-remembered stimuli (by reducing their perceptual discriminability; Experiments 1 and 2) or by providing foreknowledge of an imminent deviation (Experiment 2). In contrast, distraction from continuously changing auditory stimuli ("changing-state effect") was not modulated by task-difficulty or foreknowledge (Experiment 3). We also confirmed that individual differences in working memory capacity--typically associated with maintaining task-engagement in the face of distraction--predict the magnitude of the deviation effect, but not the changing-state effect. This convergence of experimental and psychometric data strongly supports a duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction: Auditory attentional capture (deviation effect) is open to top-down cognitive control, whereas auditory distraction caused by direct conflict between the sound and focal-task processing (changing-state effect) is relatively immune to such control.
Source: Europe PubMed Central