An irrelevant speech effect on incidental memory

Journal of Cognitive Psychology, pp. 1–11

Abstract

In most irrelevant speech experiments, the key dependent variable is intentional memory (i.e. participants encode items with the clear instruction to remember them later). Here, we investigated the irrelevant speech effect on incidental memory (i.e. participants encoded items without any expectation of a later recall). We used the survival processing paradigm. Participants rated words according to their fitness relevance or pleasantness, followed by a surprise memory test. In Experiment 1, we found the typical survival processing memory advantage in quiet, but not when irrelevant speech was played during encoding, retention and recall. In Experiments 2 and 3, irrelevant speech was played only during the rating task (encoding), but not during the intermediate task (retention) or the surprise memory test (recall). The survival processing effect persisted, suggesting that incidental memory is rather robust against irrelevant speech when played during encoding, but not during the retention and retrieval of information.

Authors 2

1. Jan Philipp Röer corresponding

   Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf · Witten/Herdecke University

   Affiliation as printed

   Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf

   Witten/Herdecke University

2. Sabine J. Schlittmeier Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University · Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt

   Affiliation as printed

   Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt

   RWTH Aachen University