title: The semantic aftermath of distraction by deviant sounds: Crosstalk interference is mediated by the predictability of semantic congruency.
abstract: Rare changes in a stream of otherwise repeated task-irrelevant sounds break through selective attention and disrupt performance in an unrelated visual task. This deviance distraction effect emerges because deviant sounds violate the cognitive system's predictions. In this study we sought to examine whether predictability also mediate the so-called semantic effect whereby behavioral performance suffers from the clash between the involuntary semantic evaluation of irrelevant sounds and the voluntary processing of visual targets (e.g., when participants must categorize a right visual arrow following the presentation of the deviant sound "left"). By manipulating the conditional probabilities of the congruent and incongruent deviant sounds in a left/right arrow categorization task, we elicited implicit predictions about the upcoming target and related response. We observed a linear increase of the semantic effect with the proportion of congruent deviant trials (i.e., as deviant sounds increasingly predicted congruent targets). We conclude that deviant sounds affect response times based on a combination of crosstalk interference and two types of prediction violations: stimulus violations (violations of predictions regarding the identity of upcoming irrelevant sounds) and semantic violations (violations of predictions regarding the target afforded by deviant sounds). We report a three-parameter model that captures all key features of the observed RTs. Overall, our results fit with the view that the brain builds forward models of the environment in order to optimize cognitive processing and that control of one's attention and actions is called upon when predictions are violated. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled SI: Prediction and Attention.
authors: Neuropsychology & Cognition Group, Department of Psychology and Research Institute for Health Sciences (iUNICS), University of the Balearic Islands, Palma, Balearic Islands, Spain; Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Palma (IdISPa), Balearic Islands, Spain; School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia. Electronic address: fabrice.parmentier@uib.es.
authors: Fabrice B R
authors: FB
authors: Parmentier
authors: Neuropsychology & Cognition Group, Department of Psychology and Research Institute for Health Sciences (iUNICS), University of the Balearic Islands, Palma, Balearic Islands, Spain.
authors: Miriam
authors: M
authors: Kefauver
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time; D012660:Semantics; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Auditory attention; Deviant sounds; Distraction; Oddball task; Prediction