A new study by Fabrice Parmentier and Laura Gallego has just been accepted for publication in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. While previous work has shown that the predictability of the unexpected sounds reduces distraction, this study is the first to show that the predictability of the task stimuli and responses does not protect participants from auditory distraction.
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View the paper on Springer Nature’s Sharedit.
This work formed part of Laura Gallego’s placement as student collaborator working with Fabrice Parmentier.
Abstract: Past studies show that novel, task-irrelevant, auditory stimuli, presented in the context of an otherwise repeated standard sound, capture participants’ attention away from a focal task, resulting in behavioral distraction. While evidence has shown that making novel sounds predictable reduces or eliminates distraction, it remains unknown whether predictable target stimuli can also shield participants from novelty distraction. Using a serial reaction time task, we installed the learning of a sequence of target stimuli before testing the impact of novel sounds on performance for this sequence compared to a new one. In the learning phase, participants pressed response buttons corresponding to visual cues appearing in one of four spatial locations arranged horizontally. Unbeknownst to participants, the sequence of locations followed a pattern during several blocks before being replaced by a new pattern. The data provided solid evidence of sequence learning for the repeated sequence. In the auditory distraction phase, auditory distractors were presented immediately before each visual target. Novel sounds lengthened response times compared to the standard sound (novelty distraction), equally for learned and new sequences. We conclude that the anticipation of target stimuli and responses does not shield participants from novelty distraction and that the latter is an obligatory attentional effect.
Latest update: This work has been accepted for oral presentation at the 62d Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, in New Orleans, USA, 4-7 November 2021.