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In the cocktail party phenomenon, participants cannot attend to more than 1 stream of information, but sometimes detect their own name being presented in the irrelevant message during a selective listening task. Here we present a preregistered replication of the phenomenon, in which we also tested whether semantically unexpected words have a similar effect and whether individual differences in working memory capacity as measured by the operation and running-span tasks are related to the ability to detect one's own name or unexpected words in the irrelevant message. Twenty-nine percent of the participants reported noticing their own name, and those who did made more errors on relevant, to-be-shadowed words presented around the time of the name. Low-span participants were more likely than high-span participants to notice their names and to commit shadowing errors concurrently to the presentation of the name or shortly after. In contrast, semantically unexpected words were rarely detected, nor were they associated with shadowing errors in the relevant message. Our results demonstrate once again that highly relevant stimuli such as one's own name are capable of attracting and capturing attention for a short period of time. Our results also demonstrate that unexpected words within sentences do not belong to this category of stimuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sequences of auditory objects such as one-syllable words or brief sounds disrupt serial recall of visually presented targets even when the auditory objects are completely irrelevant for the task at hand. The token set size effect is a label for the claim that disruption increases only when moving from a 1-token distractor sequence (e.g., "AAAAAAAA") to a token set size of 2 (e.g., "ABABABAB") but remains constant when moving from a token set size of 2 to a larger token set size (e.g., "ABCABCAB" or "DAGCFBEH"). Here we show that this claim was incorrect and based on experiments with insufficient statistical power. With sufficient statistical power it can be shown that disruption increases not only when the distractor token set size increases from 1 to 2, but also when it increases from two to eight one-syllable words (Experiment 1) and brief instrumental sounds (Experiment 2). These findings have implications for theories of auditory distraction which differ in their predictions about whether the distractor-induced performance decrement should (a) only be determined by acoustic differences between immediately adjacent distractor tokens (duplex-mechanism account) or (b) gradually increase as a function of the variability in the distractor set (attentional account). The present data are inconsistent with the duplexmechanism account and support the attentional account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sound disrupts short-term retention in working memory even when the sound is completely irrelevant and has to be ignored. The dominant view in the literature is that this type of disruption is essentially limited to so-called changing-state distractor sequences with acoustic changes between successive distractor objects (e.g., "ABABABAB") and does not occur with so-called steady-state distractor sequences that are composed of a single repeated distractor object (e.g., "AAAAAAAA"). Here we show that this view can no longer be maintained. What is more, disruption by steady-state distractors is significantly reduced after preexposure to the distractor item, directly confirming a central assumption of attentional explanations of auditory distraction and parallel to what has been shown earlier for changingstate sounds. Taken together, the findings reported here are compatible with a graded attentional account of auditory disruption, and they are incompatible with the duplex-mechanism account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Short-term memory (STM) for serially presented visual items is disrupted by task-irrelevant, to-be-ignored speech. Five experiments investigated the extent to which irrelevant speech is processed semantically by contrasting the following two hypotheses: (1) semantic processing of irrelevant speech is limited and does not interfere with serial STM or (2) irrelevant speech is routinely processed semantically at an interlexical level to allow for the detection of stimuli that are of potential relevance for the individual. We tested these hypotheses by comparing the disruption of serial recall by distractor sentences with semantically expected endings to that of sentences with semantically unexpected endings. Sentences with unexpected endings consistently produced more disruption than sentences with expected endings. Phonologically expected, but semantically unexpected endings had the same effect, demonstrating that a semantic and not a phonological mismatch is responsible for the increased disruption. In all five experiments, the semantic mismatch effect was not reduced after repeated exposure to sentences with unexpected endings. The results suggest that (1) semantic processing occurs at the interlexical level of irrelevant speech, which requires the integration of words into the sentence context and (2) the semantic content of a distractor interferes with the maintenance of serial information in short-term-memory if it is unexpected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study was designed to examine age-related differences in the disruption of short-term memory by changing and deviant speech sounds. In total, 128 old and 130 young adults performed a serial recall task while ignoring (a) steady-state sequences in which the same distractor word was repeated 12 times, (b) auditory deviant sequences in which the ninth distractor word deviated from the otherwise repetitive context, and (c) changing state sequences in which 12 different distractor words were presented. According to inhibitory deficit theory, older adults should generally be more susceptible to auditory distraction. The duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction is based on the idea that the changing state effect and the auditory deviant effect are functionally different. It suggests that older adults should be more impaired by auditory deviants than younger adults but equally able to ignore changing state sequences. The age-invariant distractibility account predicts no age differences in auditory distraction, which was confirmed by the present results. Old adults performed worse than young adults in the serial recall task. In both age groups, however, the changing state effect (i.e., increased disruption by changing state sequences relative to steady-state sequences) and the auditory deviant effect (i.e., increased disruption by auditory deviant sequences relative to steady-state sequences) were equivalent. These effects were also unrelated to individual differences in working memory capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rating the relevance of words for the imagined situation of being stranded in the grasslands without survival material leads to exceptionally good memory for these words. This survival processing effect has received much attention because it promises to elucidate the evolutionary foundations of memory. However, the proximate mechanisms of the survival processing effect have to be identified before informed speculations about its adaptive function are possible. Here, we test and contrast 2 promising accounts of the survival processing effect. According to the 1st account, the effect is the consequence of the prioritized processing of threat-related information. According to the 2nd account, thinking about the relevance of items for survival stimulates thinking about object function, which is a particularly elaborate form of encoding. Experiment 1 showed that the emotional properties of the survival scenario, as manipulated by the negative or positive framing of the scenario, did not influence recall. A focus on threat at encoding led to worse recall than a focus on function. The latter finding was replicated in Experiment 2, which further showed that focusing on threat did not lead to a memory advantage over a pleasantness control condition. The beneficial effect of inducing a functional focus at encoding even surpasses that of the standard survival processing instruction. Together, the results support the theory that thinking about function is an important component of the survival processing effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a series of experiments, it was tested whether distraction by changing-state irrelevant speech is inevitable or can be modulated by foreknowledge of an imminent to-be-ignored distractor sequence. Participants were required to remember visually presented digits while ignoring background speech. In the foreknowledge condition of Experiment 1, the upcoming to-be-ignored sentence was presented auditorily and visually before each trial. With specific foreknowledge, the changing-state irrelevant sound effect (here, increased disruption by sentences compared with repeated words) was significantly attenuated relative to a condition without foreknowledge. This finding was replicated in Experiment 2, in which the information about the upcoming auditory distractor speech was presented only in the visual modality. Experiment 3 showed that only specific foreknowledge of the auditory distractor material has beneficial effects on the ability to ignore distraction. The mere notification that an unspecified distractor sentence would be presented next had no effect on distraction. In Experiment 4, there was only a small and not statistically significant reduction of the irrelevant speech effect when lists of randomly selected words were used as distractor material, suggesting that foreknowledge effects are more pronounced for highly variable, meaningful distractor material. We conclude that the disruption of short-term memory by irrelevant speech is not purely a stimulus-driven process that is immune to top-down control. A significant proportion of the effect can be modulated by specific knowledge about an imminent distractor sequence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immediate serial recall is seriously disrupted by to-be-ignored sound. According to the embedded-processes model, auditory distractors elicit attentional orienting that draws processing resources away from the recall task. The model predicts that interference should be attenuated after repeated exposure to the auditory distractors. Previous failures to observe evidence for habituation can be explained by assuming that habituation to complex distractor features depends on the availability of working memory resources. Here we demonstrate that the irrelevant sound effect is attenuated after passive listening to the auditory distractors during a preexposure phase prior to the serial recall task. Experiment 1 shows that the irrelevant sound effect is abolished after 20 min of passive listening to the distractor speech. Experiments 2-4 show that irrelevant sound interference is significantly reduced after listening to distractors for 45 s. As predicted by the habituation hypothesis, an attenuation of interference occurs only when the distractor material matches the material played in the preexposure phase (Experiment 5). The results support an attentional conceptualization of the irrelevant sound effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large body of evidence shows an animacy effect on memory in that animate entities are better remembered than inanimate ones. Yet, the reason for this mnemonic prioritization remains unclear. In the survival processing literature, the assumption that richness of encoding is responsible for adaptive memory benefits has received substantial empirical support. In the present study, we examined whether richness of encoding may be considered as a possible mechanism underlying the animacy effect as well. Specifically, we tested a prediction derived from the assumption that processing animate words results in a richer set of associations to other items in memory than processing inanimate words, which may provide participants with a larger set of retrieval cues at test. In Experiments 1 and 3 the animacy effect was replicated in an intentional learning paradigm with different sets of to-be-remembered animate and inanimate words. In Experiments 2 and 4, participants were asked to report any ideas coming to mind in response to these words at encoding. Participants were also asked to recall the words in a surprise recall test. The results showed a reliable animacy effect on free recall in all four experiments, that is, independently of whether encoding was intentional or incidental. Most importantly, the results of Experiments 2 and 4 show that participants spontaneously generated more ideas in response to animate words than in response to inanimate words. The findings suggest that richness of encoding should be further considered as a potential proximate mechanism of the animacy effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ideal partner preferences (i.e., ratings of the desirability of attributes like attractiveness or intelligence) are the source of numerous foundational findings in the interdisciplinary literature on human mating. Recently, research on the predictive validity of ideal partner preference matching (i.e., Do people positively evaluate partners who match vs. mismatch their ideals?) has become mired in several problems. First, articles exhibit discrepant analytic and reporting practices. Second, different findings emerge across laboratories worldwide, perhaps because they sample different relationship contexts and/or populations. This registered report-partnered with the Psychological Science Accelerator-uses a highly powered design ( N = 10,358) across 43 countries and 22 languages to estimate preference-matching effect sizes. The most rigorous tests revealed significant preference-matching effects in the whole sample and for partnered and single participants separately. The "corrected pattern metric" that collapses across 35 traits revealed a zero-order effect of β = .19 and an effect of β = .11 when included alongside a normative preference-matching metric. Specific traits in the "level metric" (interaction) tests revealed very small (average β = .04) effects. Effect sizes were similar for partnered participants who reported ideals before entering a relationship, and there was no consistent evidence that individual differences moderated any effects. Comparisons between stated and revealed preferences shed light on gender differences and similarities: For attractiveness, men's and (especially) women's stated preferences underestimated revealed preferences (i.e., they thought attractiveness was less important than it actually was). For earning potential, men's stated preferences underestimated-and women's stated preferences overestimated-revealed preferences. Implications for the literature on human mating are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

In an influential article, 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. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Visual-verbal serial recall is disrupted when task-irrelevant background speech has to be ignored. Contrary to previous suggestion, it has recently been shown that the magnitude of disruption may be accentuated by the semantic properties of the irrelevant speech. Sentences ending with unexpected words that did not match the preceding semantic context were more disruptive than sentences ending with expected words. This particular instantiation of a deviation effect has been termed the semantic mismatch effect. To establish a new phenomenon, it is necessary to show that the effect can be independently replicated and does not depend on specific boundary conditions such as the language of the stimulus material. Here we report a preregistered replication of the semantic mismatch effect in which we examined the effect of unexpected words in 4 different languages (English, French, German, and Swedish) across 4 different laboratories. Participants performed a serial recall task while ignoring sentences with expected or unexpected words that were recorded using text-to-speech software. Independent of language, sentences ending with unexpected words were more disruptive than sentences ending with expected words. In line with previous results, there was no evidence of habituation of the semantic mismatch effect in the form of a decrease in disruption with repeated exposure to the occurrence of unexpected words. The successful replication and extension of the effect to different languages indicates the expression of a general and robust mechanism that reacts to violations of expectancies based on the semantic content of the irrelevant speech. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

It is well established that task-irrelevant, to-be-ignored speech adversely affects serial short-term memory (STM) for visually presented items compared with a quiet control condition. However, there is an ongoing debate about whether the semantic content of the speech has the capacity to capture attention and to disrupt memory performance. In the present article, we tested whether taboo words are more difficult to ignore than neutral words. Taboo words or neutral words were presented as (a) steady state sequences in which the same distractor word was repeated, (b) changing state sequences in which different distractor words were presented, and (c) auditory deviant sequences in which a single distractor word deviated from a sequence of repeated words. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that taboo words disrupted performance more than neutral words. This taboo effect did not habituate and it did not differ between individuals with high and low working memory capacity. In Experiments 3 and 4, in which only a single deviant taboo word was presented, no taboo effect was obtained. These results do not support the idea that the processing of the auditory distractors' semantic content is the result of occasional attention switches to the auditory modality. Instead, the overall pattern of results is more in line with a functional view of auditory distraction, according to which the to-be-ignored modality is routinely monitored for potentially important stimuli (e.g., self-relevant or threatening information), the detection of which draws processing resources away from the primary task. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).)

Memory for words rated according to their relevance in a grassland survival context is exceptionally good. According to Nairne, Thompson, and Pandeirada's (2007) evolutionary-based explanation, natural selection processes have tuned the human memory system to prioritize the processing of fitness-relevant information. The survival-processing memory advantage has been replicated numerous times, but very little is known about the proximate mechanisms behind it. The richness-of-encoding hypothesis (Kroneisen & Erdfelder, 2011) implies that rating the usefulness of items in a survival context leads to the generation of a large number of ideas that may be used as retrieval cues at test to boost recall. In Experiment 1, the typical survival-processing recall advantage was obtained when words were rated according to their usefulness in 1 of 3 fictional contexts. In Experiment 2, participants were asked to write down any ideas that came to mind when thinking about the usefulness of the words. Consistent with the richness-of-encoding hypothesis, participants generated more ideas in the survival condition than in the fitness-irrelevant control conditions. In Experiment 3, participants generated more ideas for congruent than for incongruent words, demonstrating that the richness-of-encoding hypothesis can also account for the previously obtained congruency effect on recall (Butler, Kang, & Roediger, 2009). In both experiments the number of ideas written down predicted future recall performance well. Our results provide further evidence for the assumption that richness of encoding is an important proximate mechanism involved in memory performance in the survival-processing paradigm., (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.)