Preregistered Replication of the Auditory Deviant Effect: A Robust Benchmark Finding

Raoul Bell,Stefan J Troche,Laura Mieth,Axel Buchner,Jan Philipp Röer

doi:10.5334/joc.64

Abstract

Short-term memory of visually presented lists of items is disrupted by auditory distraction. The auditory deviant effect refers to the finding that a sequence in which a single auditory event deviates from all other auditory objects disrupts serial recall more than a sequence without such a deviant. The changing-state effect refers to the finding that auditory changing-state sequences with changes from one auditory distractor item to the next disrupt the immediate serial recall of verbal items more than steady-state sequences consisting of distractor repetitions. One purpose of the present study is to perform a preregistered replication of the auditory deviant effect as well as (for the purpose of comparison) the changing-state effect and to provide reference data sets for the auditory deviant effect and the changing-state effect in the benchmarks repository with a large sample of participants and trials. Both effects were robustly obtained over the course of two sessions in which participants were tested. We also explored the relationship between auditory distraction and personality, and found auditory distraction to be unrelated to extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism.

Highlights

Working on a cognitively demanding task in a crowded room where people are talking can be difficult because irrelevant sounds interfere with working-memory functions (Banbury, Macken, Tremblay, & Jones, 2001; Beaman, 2005)
The changing-state effect (Jones et al, 1992) refers to the finding that auditory changing-state sequences that comprise changes from one auditory distractor item to the (e.g., ABCDEFGH) disrupt the immediate serial recall of verbal items more than steady-state sequences consisting of distractor repetitions (e.g., AAAAAAAA)
The auditory deviant effect (Hughes et al, 2005; Lange, 2005) refers to the finding that a sequence with a single auditory deviant distractor item that deviates from the other auditory objects in the sequence (e.g., AAAABAAA) disrupts serial recall more than a steady-state sequence without such a deviant (e.g., AAAAAAAA)

Summary

Introduction

Working on a cognitively demanding task in a crowded room where people are talking can be difficult because irrelevant sounds interfere with working-memory functions (Banbury, Macken, Tremblay, & Jones, 2001; Beaman, 2005). Among the standard phenomena that are examined to understand the effect of auditory distraction on cognitive performance are the changing-state effect (Jones, Madden, & Miles, 1992) and the auditory deviant effect (Hughes, Vachon, & Jones, 2005; Lange, 2005). In the benchmarks project (Oberauer et al, 2018), a list of benchmark findings has been defined that theories and computational models of working memory should be able to account for Both the changing-state effect and the auditory-deviant effect have been included in this list. Computational models do aim at explaining effects and at reproducing real data reflecting these effects To support these efforts, a long-term goal of the benchmarks team is to collect a set of reference data for each of the phenomena on the benchmarks list and to make this data available on an open data repository. A second purpose of the present preregistered replication is to provide a reference data set for the changing-state effect and the auditory deviant effect in the benchmarks repository that fulfills the criteria stated above

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Conclusion