Changing-State Irrelevant Speech Disrupts Visual-Verbal but not Visual-Spatial Serial Recall

Marsh, John and Hurlstone, Mark and Marois, Alexandre and Ball, Linden and Moore, Stuart and Vachon, Francois and Schlittmeier, Sabine and Roer, Jan and Buchner, Axel and Aust, Frederick and Bell, Raoul (2024) Changing-State Irrelevant Speech Disrupts Visual-Verbal but not Visual-Spatial Serial Recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. ISSN 0278-7393 (In Press)

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Abstract

In an influential paper, Jones et al. (1995) provide evidence that auditory distraction by changing relative to repetitive auditory distracters (the changing-state effect) did not differ between a visual-verbal and visual-spatial serial recall task, providing evidence for an amodal mechanism for the representation of serial order in short-term memory that transcends modalities. This finding has been highly influential for theories of short-term memory and auditory distraction. However, evidence vis-à-vis the robustness of this result is sorely lacking. Here, two high-powered replications of Jones et al.’s (1995) crucial Experiment 4 were undertaken. In the first partial replication (n = 64), a fully within-participants design was adopted, wherein participants undertook both the visual-verbal and visual-spatial serial recall tasks under different irrelevant sound conditions, without a retention period. The second near-identical replication (n = 128), incorporated a retention period and implemented the task-modality manipulation as a between-participants factor, as per the original Jones et al. (1995; Experiment 4) study. In both experiments, the changing-state effect was observed for visual-verbal serial recall but not for visual-spatial serial recall. The results are consistent with modular and interference-based accounts of distraction and challenge some aspects of functional equivalence accounts.