0000000000637281
AUTHOR
Maria Klatte
Auditory Distraction by Meaningless Irrelevant Speech: A Developmental Study
Summary The irrelevant sound effect (ISE) typically refers to a disruptive effect of a to-be-ignored sound in serial recall tasks, where lists of visually presented items (digits and letters) must be recalled in serial order. Although extensively studied in adults, studies on developmental aspects of the ISE are scarce. The present study aims to increase our understanding of developmental changes of auditory distraction in children beyond serial recall. Two tasks (i.e., word categorization and evaluation of simple mathematical equations) were designed to test retrieval from semantic memory. Proportion correct and reaction times (adjusted for speed–accuracy tradeoff) were measured in 8–9 and…
Age differences in the irrelevant sound effect: A serial recognition paradigm
In adults, the disrupting effect of irrelevant background sounds with distinct temporalspectral variations (changing-state sounds) on short-term memory performance was found to be robust. In the present study, a verbal serial recognition task was used to investigate this so-called Irrelevant Sound Effect (ISE) in adults and 8- to 10-year-old children. An essential part of the short-term memory impairment during changing-state speech is due to interference processes (changing-state effect) which can be differentiated from the deviation effect of auditory distraction. In line with recent findings (Hughes et al., 2013), our study demonstrates that the changing-state effect is not modulated by …