Exploring a Process-Based Account of the Disruption to Music Cognition by Task-Irrelevant Sound by Rona Doris Linklater A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Central Lancashire. May 2020 STUDENT DECLARATION FORM Type of Award Doctor of Philosophy School Psychology 1. Concurrent registration for two or more academic awards I declare that while registered as a candidate for the research degree, I have not been a registered candidate or enrolled student for another award of the University or other academic or professional institution. 2. Material submitted for another award I declare that no material contained in the thesis has been used in any other submission for an academic award and is solely my own work. 3. Collaboration Where a candidate’s research programme is part of a collaborative project, the thesis must indicate in addition clearly the candidate’s individual contribution and the extent of the collaboration. Please state below: NOT APPLICABLE 4. Use of a Proof-reader No proof-reading service was used in the compilation of this thesis. Signature of Candidate Print name: Rona Doris Linklater Abstract Music is ubiquitous and important in everyday life and yet a complete understanding of the role it plays in cognitive processes and distraction remains elusive. This thesis aimed to explore the extent to which background melody and lyrics—alone or combined within song—impact differentially on concurrent cognitive processes. Current theoretical accounts question specificity for music and language by arguing that lexical, phonological and music processing share a common cerebral network: yet other lines of evidence indicate that separate working memory processes for music and visual- verbal information exist. Numerous studies involving to-be-ignored sound have considered its auditory properties and the interplay between rehearsal, attention, or task complexity. However, most prior research addressing interference produced by music on task performance has focused on short-term memory recall/recognition of visually presented tones/words. Few studies address vocal production of melody/lyrics and consequently it is still unclear how pathways for vocal input/output are generated/related and, of greater consequence, how the vocal-motor planning mechanism required for vocal production is affected by the competing motor-plan from the presence of extraneous sound: melody, song, or speech. To explore distraction within a larger process-based cognitive framework, the present empirical series of studies are the first to demonstrate effects of to-be-ignored distracters on long-term memory retrieval and production for complete melody and lyrics of known songs through vocal (humming) and speaking performance. Various combinations of to-be- ignored familiar and unfamiliar melody, with and without lyrics, were delivered during retrieval performance of a different familiar target melody (Study I) and lyrics (Study II). Results suggest an independence of language and melody processing and are consistent with an interference-by-process framework: the nature of the disruptive effects observed on the focal task were jointly dependent on the nature of the distracters and the focal task. However, using short-term memory tasks, Studies III and IV provide some evidence against the interference-by-process view. The results extend the perceptual-gestural view of short-term memory, according to which the disruption observed by task-irrelevant sound reflects a clash between the action of the sequencing processes embodied within perceptual input-processing and gestural output-planning systems that are general and co-opted to meet task demands. Implications and applications of these results are discussed with regard to age-related cognitive decline. i Table of Contents List of Tables.................................................................................................................. viii List of Figures ................................................................................................................... x Dedication ....................................................................................................................... xii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ xiii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION. Music and cognition .......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Neural response to music ............................................................................... 3 1.2 Memory processes .......................................................................................... 5 1.2.1 Working memory and long-term memory ....................................... 6 1.2.2 Memory for music and language...................................................... 8 1.2.3 Similarities and differences .............................................................. 9 1.2.4 Specificity of music and language processes ................................. 10 1.3 Musical semantic memory ........................................................................... 13 1.3.1 Familiarity versus unfamiliarity ..................................................... 13 1.3.2 Timbre and tempo .......................................................................... 16 1.4 Vocal music .................................................................................................. 16 1.4.1 Integration ...................................................................................... 16 1.4.2 Independence.................................................................................. 18 1.4.3 Melody and text association ........................................................... 20 1.5 Listening and production.............................................................................. 21 1.5.1 Musicians versus non-musicians: Training .................................... 21 1.5.2 Musicians versus non-musicians: Memory .................................... 21 1.6 Production of musical sound: Vocal ............................................................ 23 1.7 Auditory imagery ......................................................................................... 24 1.7.1 Role of motor-systems in auditory imagery: Perception and action ............................................................................................................................. 26 1.7.2 Role of motor-systems in auditory imagery: Inner ear .................. 26 1.8 Music as a mnemonic ................................................................................... 28 1.9 Interim summary .......................................................................................... 30 CHAPTER II: AN OVERVIEW OF DISTRACTION BY TASK IRRELEVANT SOUND 2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 31 2.2 The serial recall paradigm ............................................................................ 32 ii 2.3 Non-influential factors ................................................................................. 34 2.4 Structural accounts ....................................................................................... 36 2.4.1 Interference-by-content .................................................................. 36 2.4.2 Phonological store account ............................................................ 37 2.5 Acoustic characteristics versus phonological content .................................. 40 2.5.1 Interference-by-process .................................................................. 41 2.5.2 Attentional capture: Deviation effect ............................................. 47 2.5.3 Duplex-mechanism account ........................................................... 49 2.6 Auditory-music distraction........................................................................... 51 2.6.1 Music and the irrelevant sound effect (ISE) .................................. 52 2.6.2 Pitch versus rhythm ........................................................................ 55 2.6.3 Vocal-music-auditory distraction ................................................... 56 2.7 Arousal, mood, and selective attention ........................................................ 57 2.7.1 Familiar versus unfamiliar music ................................................... 58 2.8 Music-auditory distraction during non-seriation tasks ................................. 60 2.8.1 Reading comprehension/prose/mental arithmetic .......................... 61 2.9 Tempo, intensity, dynamic, and motor action in non-serial tasks ................ 63 2.10 Semantic-auditory distraction ..................................................................... 64 2.10.1 Semantic-auditory distraction and the ISE in serial recall ........... 64 2.10.2 Semantic-auditory distraction in non-serial episodic recall ......... 65 2.10.3 Semantic-auditory distraction in lexical production .................... 67 2.11 Structural accounts of semantic-auditory distraction .................................. 72 2.11.1 Interference-by-content ................................................................ 72 2.11.2 Attentional accounts ..................................................................... 73 2.12 Interim summary ........................................................................................