Resisting Attentional Capture: The Control of Auditory Distraction
Lead Research Organisation:
CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
Department Name: Sch of Psychology
Abstract
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Organisations
Publications
Hughes RW
(2014)
Auditory distraction: A duplex-mechanism account.
in PsyCh journal
Hughes RW
(2013)
Cognitive control of auditory distraction: impact of task difficulty, foreknowledge, and working memory capacity supports duplex-mechanism account.
in Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance
Ljungberg J
(2012)
Listen Out! Behavioural and Subjective Responses to Verbal Warnings
in Applied Cognitive Psychology
Robert Hughes (Author)
(2011)
Disruption of cognitive performance by sound : differentiating two forms of auditory distraction
in International Commission on the Biological Effects of Noise (ICBEN) international congress on noise as a public health problem
Robert Wyn Hughes (Author)
(2011)
Resisting auditory attentional capture : the roles of task load, pre-knowledge, and working memory capacity
Robert Wyn Hughes (Author)
(2011)
Attenuation of auditory attentional capture under high visual load during serial recall : top-down blocking, not passive filtering?
Robert Wyn Hughes (Author)
(2011)
Cognitive control of auditory attention : evidence for resistible and ineluctable forms of distraction by sound
Robert Wyn Hughes (Author)
(2011)
Auditory distraction : the resistible and the indomitable
Vachon F
(2012)
Broken expectations: violation of expectancies, not novelty, captures auditory attention.
in Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition
| Description | Empirical and Theoretical Discoveries The project established that the breakdown of selective attention in the face of auditory distraction comes in two functionally distinct forms, where one form (attentional capture) is open to top-down cognitive control whereas another (interference-by-process) is less so if at all. This analytic counterpoint between the two forms of distraction and their amenability to cognitive control has advanced theory in several important ways: i. It provides perhaps the most convincing evidence to date in support of a duplex-mechanism account over single-mechanism accounts of auditory distraction (see full output 1). ii. It suggests that a rethinking of the standard view of the relationship between attentional selectivity and working memory (WM) capacity/load may be warranted. Instead, the research points to 'goal-driven engagement' as a more promising explanatory concept: increased engagement in goal-driven processing will reduce distraction that occurs through task-disengagement (attentional capture) but can increase distraction when the distraction is based on competition for that goal-driven activity (see full output 2) Methodological Impact The main methodological innovation has been to establish that the co-manipulation of two forms of distraction in serial recall coupled with manipulations of task-load/ measures of working memory capacity provides a novel and rich source of data that can inform a range of otherwise disparate theoretical claims and perspectives including those relating to the nature of short-term/WM and whether a resource-based view of WM capacity/attentional control is viable Applied Impact The results of the project have contributed to the securing of further funding to examine the design of complex auditory alarms in work settings. |
| Exploitation Route | The results of the project have already had a good deal of academic impact (one of the 2013 outputs--Hughes et al. 2013, JEP:HPP--has been cited 67 times). In particular the findings have been taken forward by ourselves and other researchers to examine the impact of high visual encoding load in the context of semantic memory and more 'real-world' settings such as whether comprehension and memory is influenced by the readability of type-fonts, e.g., Marsh, J. E., Sörqvist, P., & Hughes, R. W. (2015). Dynamic cognitive control of irrelevant sound: increased task engagement attenuates semantic auditory distraction. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform, 41, 1462-1474. Halin, N., Marsh, J., Haga, A., Holmgren, M. & Sörqvist, P. (2014). Effects of speech on proofreading : can task-engagement manipulations shield against distraction?. Journal of experimental psychology. Applied, 20 (1), 69-80. 10.1037/xap0000002 Halin, N., Marsh, J., Hellman, A., Hellström, I. & Sörqvist, P. (2014). A shield against distraction. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 3 (1), 31-36. 10.1016/j.jarmac.2014.01.003 |
| Sectors | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Environment |