EFFECTS OF A CONTINUALLY REPEATED SPEECH SEQUENCE AND OF INTERRUPTED NOISE ON PERFORMANCE IN A SERIAL RECALL TASK

摘要

The performance data again support the well established fact that background speech disrupts serial recall and that noise sounds do not. As far as the narrative speech and the speech-equivalent noise are concerned, the results parallel (in magnitude and pattern) those of Hellbrueck, Kuwano, and Namba who used the same speech and a comparable speech-simulating (Fasti) noise but at lower levels (55 dB(A)) and in a slightly different experimental procedure. These and other data sets point out that the time structure of background noises is not crucial to the ISE. Surprising is the observation that the continuously repeated speech sequence intensifies the disruptive effect of background speech, a result which challenges the changing state hypothesis as "... a repeated or continuous sound is devoid of cues to changing state and will not bring about an irrelevant speech effect" (Jones et al., 1992, p 652).