Word frequency versus contextual diversity in serial recall performance

A new study by Parmentier, Comeseña and Soares just accepted for publication in The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology demonstrates for the first time that verbal serial memory is mediated by the stimuli' contextual diversity (i.e., the number of different contexts in which these stimuli are encountered) and that this effect is distinct from that of word frequency.

Abstract: Research shows that contextual diversity (CD; the number of different contexts in which a word appears within a corpus) constitutes a better predictor of reading performance than word frequency (WF), that it mediates the access to lexical representations, and that controlling for contextual CD abolishes the effect of WF in lexical decision tasks. Despite the theoretical relevance of these findings for the study of serial memory, it is not known how CD might affect serial recall performance. We report the first independent manipulation of CD and WF in a serial recall task. Experiment 1 revealed better performance for low CD and for high WF words independently. Both effects affected omissions and item errors, but contrary to past research, word frequency also affected order errors. These results were confirmed in two more experiments comparing pure and alternating lists of low and high CD (Experiment 2) or WF (Experiment 3). The effect of CD was immune to this manipulation, while that of WF was abolished in alternating lists. Altogether the findings suggest a more difficult episodic retrieval of item information for words of high CD, and a role for both item and order information in the WF effect.

Reference: Parmentier, F. B. R., Comesaña, M., & Soares, A. P. (in press). Disentangling the effects of word frequency and contextual diversity on serial recall performance. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.

Are we more susceptible to distraction when happy?

Mean response time in a task in which participants judged the parity of visual digits while ignoring rare and unexpected changes in irrelevant sounds (deviant sounds). Compared to repeated (standard) sounds, deviant sounds increased response times (deviance distraction). This effect was larger in participants undergoing a happiness induction compared to participants receiving a neutral induction. Distraction observed on the first standard sound following a deviant sound (post-deviance distraction) was numerically smaller in happy participants.

A new study by Pacheco-Unguetti and Parmentier just accepted for publication in the British Journal of Psychology shows that participants in a state of happiness are more distracted by unexpected sounds while performing a visual task.

The study extends Pacheco-Unguetti and Parmentier's (2014) work reporting similar findings in participants in a state of sadness. Together, the two studies suggest that enhanced emotional state, negative or positive, increase the risk of distraction by unexpected stimuli. The hypothesis privileged by the authors is that enhanced emotional states consume mental resources that would otherwise be recruited to help reorient attention away from attention-grabbing distractors.

Reference:
Pacheco-Unguetti, A. P., & Parmentier, F. B. R. (in press). Happiness increases distraction by auditory deviant stimuli. British Journal of Psychology.

Abstract: Rare and unexpected changes (deviants) in an otherwise repeated stream of task-irrelevant auditory distractors (standards) capture attention and impair behavioral performance in an ongoing visual task. Recent evidence indicates that this effect is increased by sadness in a task involving neutral stimuli. We tested the hypothesis that such effect may not be limited to negative emotions but reflect a general depletion of attentional resources by examining whether a positive emotion (happiness) would increase deviance distraction too. Prior to performing an auditory-visual oddball task, happiness or a neutral mood was induced in participants by means of the exposure to music and the recollection of an autobiographical event. Results from the oddball task showed significantly larger deviance distraction following the induction of happiness. Interestingly, the small amount of distraction typically observed on the standard trial following a deviant trial (post-deviance distraction) was not increased by happiness. We speculate that happiness might interfere with the disengagement of attention from the deviant sound back toward the target stimulus (through the depletion of cognitive resources and/or mind wandering) but help subsequent cognitive control to recover from distraction.

When aging does not increase distraction

A new study by Leiva, Andrés and Parmentier in press in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance reveals that old age is not necessarily accompanied by an increase in distractibility by unexpected stimuli.

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Response accuracy and response times of young and older adults in auditory (top panels) and visual (bottom panels) duration discrimination tasks. Standard stimuli were tones of a fixed frequency in the auditory task and triangles presented at the center of the screen in the visual task. Deviant stimuli corresponded to sounds of a slightly higher or lower pitch in the auditory task, and of small spatial shift of the triangle in the visual task. These changes were irrelevant to the participants' task, yet they reduced response accuracy and lengthened response times. Importantly, this deviance distraction effect was of the same amplitude for young and older adults. 

Using a simple duration discrimination task in which 42 young and 42 older adults categorized visual or auditory stimuli as short or long, the study shows that unexpected changes in a task-irrelevant aspect of these stimuli distracted both groups of participants equally. This contrasts with prior findings using cross-modal tasks (auditory distractor and visual target stimuli) in which older adults exhibited a significant increase in distraction compared to young adults.

The absence of age-related effect on distraction in purely auditory and visual tasks was demonstrated thanks to high statistical power and Bayes factor analyses. Overall, these results demonstrate that aging is not irrevocably accompanied by an increase in distracibility when relevant and irrelevant stimuli share the same sensory modality.

Reference: Leiva, A., Andrés, P., & Parmentier, F. B. R. (in press). When aging does not increase distraction: Evidence from pure auditory and visual oddball tasks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.

Abstract: Past research indicates that age increases deviance distraction in cross-modal oddball tasks but results are few and less conclusive in purely auditory oddball tasks, with three studies reporting no age-related increase in deviance distraction against one that did (d = 1.04). Our study aimed to (1) examine the effect of age on deviance distraction using the largest sample size to date in order to ensure adequate statistical power and (2) extend the study of same-modality deviance distraction to the visual modality. We compared 42 young and 42 older adults in auditory and visual duration discrimination tasks where stimuli presented with rare and unexpected task-irrelevant changes in pitch (in the auditory task) or location (in the visual task). The statistical power of our experiment to detect an effect size of d = 1.04 was .999. Our results showed deviance distraction (longer RTs for deviant stimuli than for standard stimuli) in both modalities. Importantly, these effects did not vary with age. Strong support for the absence of age-related variation in deviance distraction was further demonstrated by Bayes Factor analysis. We conclude that aging does not appear to increase behavioral distraction by deviant stimuli in same-modality oddball tasks.

New study on deviance distraction and response inhibition accepted for publication

The study is the outcome of a three-month visit by Alicia Leiva to Frederick Verbruggen's laboratory at the University of Exeter thanks to a travel grant from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports.

A recent study carried out by Leiva, Parmentier, Elchlepp and Verbruggen is to be published in the high ranking Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.

The study explores the relationship between distraction by unexpected auditory change and response inhibition, combining two established tasks that had so far been used in isolation: the oddball task and the go/no-go task. The results indicate that, contrary to recent suggestions, unexpected sounds do not facilitate response inhibition unless they constitute the "no-go" signal. This highlights the importance of stimulus detection for response inhibition.

Abstract: The present study explores the link between attentional reorienting and response inhibition. Recent behavioral and neuroscience work indicates that both might rely on similar cognitive and neural mechanisms. We tested two popular accounts of the overlap: The ‘circuit breaker’ account, which assumes that unexpected events produce global suppression of motor output, and the ‘stimulus detection’ account, which assumes that attention is reoriented to unexpected events. In Experiment 1, we presented standard and (unexpected) novel sounds in a go/no-go task. Consistent with the stimulus detection account, we found longer RTs on go trials and higher rates of commission errors on no-go trials when these were preceded by a novel sound compared with a standard sound. In Experiment 2, novel and standard sounds acted as no-go signals. In this experiment, the novel sounds produced an improvement on no-go trials. This further highlights the importance of stimulus detection for response inhibition. Combined, the two experiments support the idea that attention is oriented to novel or unexpected events, impairing no-go performance if these events are irrelevant but enhancing no-go performance when they are relevant. Our findings also indicate that the popular circuit breaker account of the overlap between response inhibition and attentional reorienting needs some revision.

New project on distraction receives State funding

Fabrice and a participant in the Cognitive Psychology Laboratory

Fabrice Parmentier is awarded funding for a 4-year research project on auditory distraction from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under its competitive 2014 "Excellence" R&D program.  The project, worth 150000 Euros (+21% indirect costs), will be carried out in collaboration with Prof. Erich Schröger (University of Leipzig, Germany), Prof. Frederick Verbruggen (University of Exeter, UK) and Dr Toñi Pacheco-Unguetti (this group).

The work will consist in a series of original laboratory studies aiming to understand the cognitive underpinnings of distraction by unexpected stimuli (especially auditory). Its aim is to understand better how and when extranesous stimuli distract us, and to identify factors that increase or reduce such distraction. By doing so, the project seeks (1) to develop a better theoretical model of attentional distraction that may be useful to other researchers as well as clinicians working with individuals especially susceptible to distraction; (2) to identify factors that may be used to reduce distraction or evaluate the potential risk for distraction in everyday life and safety-critical situations. The research will include series of experiments studying the effect of various stimuli characteristics and situations on distraction, as well as the role of factors specific to individuals such as their age or their emotional state.

Participant performing a computerized cognitive task