title: Contrasting effects of changing rhythm and content on auditory distraction in immediate memory.
abstract: Across 5 experiments, the temporal regularity and content of an irrelevant speech stream were varied and their effects on a serial recall task examined. Variations of the content, but not the rhythm, of the irrelevant speech stimuli reliably disrupted serial recall performance in all experiments. Bayesian analyses supported the null hypothesis over the hypothesis that irregular rhythms would disrupt memory to a greater extent than regular rhythms. Pooling the data in a combined analysis revealed that regular presentation of the irrelevant speech was significantly more disruptive to serial recall than irregular presentation. These results are consistent with the idea that auditory distraction is sensitive to both intraitem and interitem relations and challenge an orienting-based account of auditory distraction.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Fabrice B R
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-7439-0097
authors.initials: FBR
authors.lastname: Parmentier
authors.affiliation: Centre for Cognition Research, University of Reading.
authors.forename: C Philip
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Beaman
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D010507:Periodicity; D014706:Verbal Learning; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult