Disruption of comprehension by the meaning of irrelevant sound

Abstract

This study investigates the claim that the disruption of comprehension by irrelevant sound is qualitatively different from that of short-term memory for order. Both meaningful and meaningless speech disrupted the comprehensive aspect of the task, but the effect of meaningful speech was significantly greater. Both rehearsal and semantic processing, which are involved in reading comprehension, seem to be susceptible to disruption by irrelevant meaningful speech. The study provides some evidence to suggest that the presence of meaning in the irrelevant sound in creases disruption of performance in cognitive tasks that also call upon processing of meaning.