The role of working memory capacity in auditory distraction: A review
Open Access
- 1 January 2010
- journal article
- review article
- Published by Medknow in Noise and Health
- Vol. 12 (49), 217-224
- https://doi.org/10.4103/1463-1741.70500
Abstract
The purpose of this paper was to review the current knowledge on individual differences in susceptibility to the effects of task-irrelevant sound on cognition. The literature indicates that at least two functionally different cognitive mechanisms underlie those differences; one is the efficiency by which people process the order between perceptually discrete sound events and the other is related to working memory capacity. The first mechanism seems to be involved only when disruption is a function of conflicting order processes, whereas the other mechanism is involved in a wider range of phenomena including those when attentional capture and conflicting semantic processes form the basis of disruption. Because of this, noise abatement interventions should first of all be directed towards people with low working memory capacity. Implications for theories of auditory distraction are discussed.Keywords
This publication has 31 references indexed in Scilit:
- High working memory capacity attenuates the deviation effect but not the changing-state effect: Further support for the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distractionMemory & Cognition, 2010
- A sub-process view of working memory capacity: Evidence from effects of speech on prose memoryMemory, 2010
- Interference by process, not content, determines semantic auditory distractionCognition, 2009
- Auditory distraction in semantic memory: A process-based approachJournal of Memory and Language, 2008
- The mismatch negativity (MMN) in basic research of central auditory processing: A reviewClinical Neurophysiology, 2007
- Recall of words heard in noiseApplied Cognitive Psychology, 2007
- Disruption of attention by irrelevant stimuli in serial recallJournal of Memory and Language, 2005
- Auditory Attentional Capture During Serial Recall: Violations at Encoding of an Algorithm-Based Neural Model?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2005
- The Irrelevant Sound Phenomenon Revisited: What Role for Working Memory Capacity?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2004
- The irrelevant sound effect: Does speech play a special role?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2000