title: The impact of auditory distraction on retrieval of visual memories.
abstract: Recent research has revealed that the presence of irrelevant visual information during retrieval of long-term memories diminishes recollection of task-relevant visual details. Here, we explored the impact of irrelevant auditory information on remembering task-relevant visual details by probing recall of the same previously viewed images while participants were in complete silence, exposed to white noise, or exposed to ambient sounds recorded at a busy café. The presence of auditory distraction diminished objective recollection of goal-relevant details, relative to the silence and white noise conditions. Critically, a comparison with results from a previous study using visual distractors showed equivalent effects for auditory and visual distraction. These findings suggest that disruption of recollection by external stimuli is a domain-general phenomenon produced by interference between resource-limited, top-down mechanisms that guide the selection of mnemonic details and control processes that mediate our interactions with external distractors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, W. M. Keck Center for Integrative Neurosciences, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158-2330, USA. peter.wais@ucsf.edu
authors.forename: Peter E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Wais
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gazzaley
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D011939:Mental Recall; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D055815:Young Adult