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How the Deployment of Visual Attention Modulates Auditory Distraction Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-019-01800-w 40 YEARS OF FEATURE INTEGRATION: SPECIAL ISSUE IN MEMORY OF ANNE TREISMAN How the deployment of visual attention modulates auditory distraction John E. Marsh1,2 & Tom A. Campbell3 & François Vachon2,4 & Paul J. Taylor1 & Robert W. Hughes5 # The Author(s) 2019 Abstract Classically, attentional selectivity has been conceptualized as a passive by-product of capacity limits on stimulus processing. Here, we examine the role of more active cognitive control processes in attentional selectivity, focusing on how distraction from task-irrelevant sound is modulated by levels of task engagement in a visually presented short-term memory task. Task engage- ment was varied by manipulating the load involved in the encoding of the (visually presented) to-be-remembered items. Using a list of Navon letters (where a large letter is composed of smaller, different-identity letters), participants were oriented to attend and serially recall the list of large letters (low encoding load) or to attend and serially recall the list of small letters (high encoding load). Attentional capture by a single deviant noise burst within a task-irrelevant tone sequence (the deviation effect) was eliminated under high encoding load (Experiment 1). However, distraction from a continuously changing sequence of tones (the changing-state effect) was immune to the influence of load (Experiment 2). This dissociation in the amenability of the deviation effect and the changing-state effect to cognitive control supports a duplex-mechanism over a unitary-mechanism account of auditory distraction in which the deviation effect is due to attentional capture whereas the changing-state effect reflects direct interference between the processing of the sound and processes involved in the focal task. That the changing-state effect survives high encoding load also goes against an alternative explanation of the attenuation of the deviation effect under high load in terms of the depletion of a limited perceptual resource that would result in diminished auditory processing. Keywords Selective attention . Cognitive control . Auditory distraction . Attentional capture . Interference by process Whilst there is little doubt that feature integration theory contribution that should not be overlooked is her attenuation (Treisman & Gelade, 1980) was Anne Treisman’s single most theory of selective attention (Treisman, 1964a, 1964b, 1964c, influential contribution to psychological science, an earlier 1964d;Treisman&Riley,1969). This theory derived from the study of auditory attention phenomena that dominated early John. E. Marsh and Robert W. Hughes contributed equally to the paper. cognitive psychological research on attention, and which, more Please see the URL (below) where the data for our experiments can be generally, was pivotal to the establishment of cognitivism as a found. https://doi.org/10.17030/uclan.data.00000188 viable paradigm for the scientific study of the mind (e.g., Broadbent, 1958; Cherry, 1955). Attenuation theory was a re- * John E. Marsh sponse to findings that were beginning to challenge the early- [email protected] filter model proposed by Broadbent (1958). In his model, men- tal processing is limited at the stage at which stimuli are per- 1 School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 ceived (i.e., processed to a postcategorical level); hence, in this 2HE, UK model, the selection (or ‘filtering through’) of input for 2 Department of Building, Energy, and Environmental Engineering, privileged limited-capacity processing occurs ‘early’ in the University of Gävle, Gävle, Sweden stimulus-processing chain (early selection). However, to ex- 3 Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences, plain why unselected information could, on occasion, be per- Tampere University, Tampere, Finland ceived – such as when hearing one’sownnameinan‘unat- 4 Université Laval, Quebec City, Canada tended channel’ (Moray, 1959) – Treisman (1964a, 1964b, 5 Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, 1964c, 1964d) proposed a more nuanced view whereby the Egham, UK processing of unselected input is merely attenuated as opposed Atten Percept Psychophys to being completely filtered out from postcategorical process- by measures of working memory capacity [WMC]; (Engle & ing. As such, the theory proposed that unselected input could Kane, 2004)–, certain kinds of auditory distraction are atten- indeed be processed post-categorically, and hence selection uated if not eliminated (Hughes et al., 2013; Marsh, Sörqvist, could be ‘late’, depending on the amount of activation required Hodgetts, Beaman, & Jones, 2015a; Marsh, Sörqvist, & for its perception. The theory was successful in accounting for a Hughes, 2015b; Marsh, Vachon, & Sörqvist, 2017; Sörqvist, number of findings that the early-filter account could not 2010; though see Körner, Röer, Buchner, & Bell, 2017; (Treisman, 1969). More recent views (Lavie, 1995, 2000)share Hughes and Marsh 2019). the fundamental assumption that an attentional selection mech- The paradigm we have been using to study the cognitive anism is imposed by a capacity-limited stage within a linear controllability of auditory distraction involves presenting task- stream of essentially discrete processing stages. Although, here, irrelevant sequences of sound during a visually presented selection may be ‘early’ or ‘late’ depending on the perceptual short-term memory task (e.g., Colle & Welsh, 1976;D.M. demands of a given task. Jones & Macken, 1993; Salamé & Baddeley, 1982). In a typ- Anne Treisman’s attenuation theory is a pivotal chapter in ical experiment in this paradigm, around six to eight verbal the early cognitive psychology of attention that focused on a items (e.g., digits, words) are presented one-by-one on a supposed structural limitation on stimulus processing, out of screen at a rate of one or two items per second. Following which attentional selectivity emerges. However, it has since the last item –or, in some studies, following a short retention been argued that the classic early versus late selection debate interval–, the items are to be recalled in strict serial order (i.e., was predicated on questionable premises (e.g., Allport, 1993). serial recall). The basic observation that makes this setting of For example, the observation that unattended information fails interest to the study of selective attention is that serial recall to interfere with responding to task-relevant information in performance is appreciably impaired if auditory distractors are selective filtering paradigms (e.g., selective speech presented during the task, even though participants are explic- shadowing) implies neither that the unattended information itly told to ignore them and are assured that they will not be is not processed, nor provides evidence for the existence of a quizzed as to the content of the sound (for reviews, see limited stage of stimulus processing, since selective process- Hughes & Jones, 2001;Jones,1999; Jones, Hughes, & ing is being observed and limited capacity is merely an infer- Macken, 2010). ence (Allport, 1989;Neumann,1996). For example, the fact This line of research has suggested that serial recall is vul- that postcategorical information that failed to cause interfer- nerable to auditory distraction through two functionally dis- ence when presented as irrelevant information can affect per- tinct mechanisms (the duplex-mechanism account;e.g., formance on the next trial if the same information is then task Hughes, 2014; Hughes et al., 2013; Marsh, Yang, et al., relevant indicates that the unattended postcategorical informa- 2018b). The first refers to when the preattentive, involuntary, tion had indeed been processed (Driver & Tipper, 1989). processing of the sound interferes directly with a similar pro- The current investigation of selective attention has there- cess deployed to perform the recall task. This interference-by- fore been influenced by an alternative selection-for-action (as process mechanism is witnessed empirically in the form of the opposed to selection-for-processing) view that eschews the changing-state effect: When the distractors in the sequence notion of a capacity-limited stage of processing (Allport, ‘change in state’ from one to the next (e.g., “A, Q, J, G . .”; 1987;Neumann,1996). Instead, this view proposes that lim- or a sequence of tones changing in frequency) there is marked itations on performance result from specific functional con- disruption, whereas there is far less, if any, disruption caused straints such as the typically sequential nature of motor action. by a steady-state distractor (e.g., “A, A, A, A . .”; or a re- On this approach, no limit on processing is necessarily as- peating tone; Jones & Macken, 1993; Jones, Madden, & sumed, and the theoretical question shifts to how the potential Miles, 1992). On the interference-by-process account (e.g., interference flowing from that processing is cognitively con- Jones & Tremblay, 2000), changing-state sound is particularly trolled (for an in-depth discussions, see, e.g., Allport, 1993; disruptive because the preattentive processing of the changes Neumann, 1996; Tipper, 2001). The present study builds in in the sound yields cues pertaining to order information whilst particular on recent research suggesting that the degree to a steady-state sound is impoverished in terms of such infor- which task-irrelevant auditory input impinges on task
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