scholarly journals Monetary incentives have only limited effects on auditory distraction: evidence for the automaticity of cross-modal attention capture

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raoul Bell ◽  
Laura Mieth ◽  
Axel Buchner ◽  
Jan Philipp Röer
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Recall Performance ◽  
Task Engagement ◽  
Attention Capture ◽  
Monetary Incentives ◽  
Small Decrease ◽  
Auditory Distraction ◽  
Process Component ◽  
Induced Changes ◽  
Automatic Capture

AbstractThe duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction postulates that two distinct forms of auditory distraction can be distinguished by whether or not they can be cognitively controlled. While the interference-by-process component of auditory distraction is postulated to be automatic and independent of cognitive control, the stimulus-aspecific attention capture by auditory deviants and the stimulus-specific attentional diversion by auditorily presented distractor sentences should be suppressed by increased task engagement. Here we test whether incentive-induced changes in task engagement affect the disruption of serial recall by auditory deviants (Experiment 1) and distractor sentences (Experiment 2). Monetary incentives substantially affected recall performance in both experiments. However, the incentive-induced changes in task engagement had only limited effects on auditory distraction. In Experiment 2, increased task engagement was associated with a small decrease of distraction relative to a quiet condition, but strong effects of auditory distraction on performance persisted in conditions of high task engagement in both experiments. Most importantly, and in contrast to the predictions of the duplex-mechanism account, the effects of stimulus-aspecific attention capture (Experiment 1) and stimulus-specific attentional diversion (Experiment 2) remained unaffected by incentive-induced changes in task engagement. These findings are consistent with an automatic-capture account according to which only the processes responsible for the deliberate memorization of the target items are dependent on controlled mental effort while the attention capture by auditory deviants and the attentional diversion by distractor speech are largely automatic.

scholarly journals Positive and negative mood states do not influence cross-modal auditory distraction in the serial-recall paradigm

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. e0260699
Author(s):  
Saskia Kaiser ◽  
Axel Buchner ◽  
Raoul Bell
Keyword(s):  
Serial Recall ◽  
Mood State ◽  
Negative Mood ◽  
Mood States ◽  
Auditory Distraction ◽  
State Effect ◽  
Serial Recall Task ◽  
Negative Mood States ◽  
Emotional Pictures ◽  
Automatic Capture

The aim of this study was to examine whether positive and negative mood states affect auditory distraction in a serial-recall task. The duplex-mechanism account differentiates two types of auditory distraction. The changing-state effect is postulated to be rooted in interference-by-process and to be automatic. The auditory-deviant effect is attributed to attentional capture by the deviant distractors. Only the auditory-deviant effect, but not the changing-state effect, should be influenced by emotional mood states according to the duplex-mechanism account. Four experiments were conducted to test how auditory distraction is affected by emotional mood states. Mood was induced by autobiographical recall (Experiments 1 and 2) or the presentation of emotional pictures (Experiments 3 and 4). Even though the manipulations were successful in inducing changes in mood, neither positive mood (Experiments 1 and 3) nor negative mood (Experiments 2 and 4) had any effect on distraction despite large samples sizes (N = 851 in total). The results thus are not in line with the hypothesis that auditory distraction is affected by changes in mood state. The results support an automatic-capture account according to which the auditory-deviant effect and the changing-state effect are mainly stimulus-driven effects that are rooted in the automatic processing of the to-be-ignored auditory stream.

scholarly journals Different impact of task switching and response-category conflict on subsequent memory

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michèle C. Muhmenthaler ◽  
Beat Meier
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Task Switching ◽  
Perceptual Load ◽  
Recall Performance ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Response Category ◽  
Stimulus Category ◽  
Impaired Memory ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe impact of cognitive control demands on long-term memory is mixed, with some conflicts leading to better, others leading to worse subsequent memory. The current study was designed to investigate how different types of cognitive control demands modulate the effects on memory. At study, participants had to switch between two classification tasks and later, free recall performance was assessed. The stimuli consisted of two interleaved words, one word had to be categorized and the other word had to be ignored. In four experiments, the congruency between target and ignored words was manipulated by changing the distractor category. This allowed us to investigate the impact of different types of conflict (i.e., task switching, perceptual load, response-category conflict, stimulus-category conflict). The results revealed that task switching impaired memory in all experiments. In Experiment 1, higher perceptual load also impaired memory. Experiments 2–4 showed that the co-activation of two words which required different responses (i.e., response-category conflict) enhanced memory performance but only when the conflict stimuli were presented in pure blocks. Overall, memory performance seems to depend on attentional policies. Withdrawing attention from target encoding results in lower memory performance. In contrast, focusing attention on the target results in enhanced memory performance.

Aging I

Remembering ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 169-188
Author(s):  
Fergus I. M. Craik
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Healthy Aging ◽  
Recall Performance ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Environmental Support ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Retrieval Processes ◽  
Processing Resources ◽  
Frontal Lobe Functions

Memory performance declines in the course of healthy aging, and this chapter discusses some reasons why this may be so. The author suggests that there is an age-related decline in both processing resources and in cognitive control, and that these deficiencies underlie less efficient encoding and retrieval processes. Age-related memory losses are greater in some tasks than in others, however, and the case is made that losses are relatively slight in situations that involve substantial amounts of environmental support and therefore require small amounts of self-initiated activity. In turn, the inefficiency of self-initiated activities is attributed to age-related deficiencies in frontal lobe functions. Age-related deficits in recall performance (which is heavily reliant on self-initiation) are reduced in a recognition test, which embodies greater environmental support. Deficits were also reduced by the use of pictures as materials, and there were no age differences in the ability to hold high-valued words in working memory. These effects are illustrated by experiments carried out by the author and collaborators.

scholarly journals The metacognition of auditory distraction: Judgments about the effects of deviating and changing auditory distractors on cognitive performance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raoul Bell ◽  
Laura Mieth ◽  
Jan Philipp Röer ◽  
Axel Buchner
Keyword(s):  
Steady State ◽  
Cognitive Performance ◽  
Serial Recall ◽  
Recall Performance ◽  
Metacognitive Awareness ◽  
Disruptive Effect ◽  
Auditory Distraction ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Auditory Distractors

AbstractThe duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction has been extended to predict that people should have metacognitive awareness of the disruptive effect of auditory deviants on cognitive performance but little to no such awareness of the disruptive effect of changing-state relative to steady-state auditory distractors. To test this prediction, we assessed different types of metacognitive judgments about the disruptive effects of auditory-deviant, changing-state, and steady-state distractor sequences on serial recall. In a questionnaire, participants read about an irrelevant-speech experiment and were asked to provide metacognitive beliefs about how serial-recall performance would be affected by the different types of distractors. Another sample of participants heard the auditory distractors before predicting how their own serial-recall performance would suffer or benefit from the distractors. After participants had experienced the disruptive effects of the distractor sequences first hand, they were asked to make episodic retrospective judgments about how they thought the distractor sequences had affected their performance. The results consistently show that people are, on average, well aware of the greater disruptive effect of deviant and changing-state relative to steady-state distractors. Irrespective of condition, prospective and retrospective judgments of distraction were poor predictors of the individual susceptibility to distraction. These findings suggest that phenomena of auditory distraction cannot be categorized in two separate classes based on metacognitive awareness.

scholarly journals EEG-Microstates Reflect Auditory Distraction After Attentive Audiovisual Perception Recruitment of Cognitive Control Networks

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ute Korn ◽  
Marina Krylova ◽  
Kilian L. Heck ◽  
Florian B. Häußinger ◽  
Robert S. Stark ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Auditory System ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Behavioural Response ◽  
Auditory Distraction ◽  
Attention Networks ◽  
Control Networks ◽  
Neural Processes ◽  
Audiovisual Perception ◽  
Brain States

Processing of sensory information is embedded into ongoing neural processes which contribute to brain states. Electroencephalographic microstates are semi-stable short-lived power distributions which have been associated with subsystem activity such as auditory, visual and attention networks. Here we explore changes in electrical brain states in response to an audiovisual perception and memorization task under conditions of auditory distraction. We discovered changes in brain microstates reflecting a weakening of states representing activity of the auditory system and strengthening of salience networks, supporting the idea that salience networks are active after audiovisual encoding and during memorization to protect memories and concentrate on upcoming behavioural response.

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