The impact of order incongruence between a task-irrelevant auditory sequence and a task-relevant visual sequence

Abstract

A novel effect is reported in which serial recall of visual digits was disrupted to a greater degree by the presence of the same set of digits presented as an irrelevant auditory sequence than by the presence of irrelevant auditory consonants, but only when the order of the irrelevant digits was incongruent with that of the to-be-remembered digits (Experiment 1). Experiment 2 replicated this order-incongruence effect and showed also that disruption was dictated by the number of order-incongruent transitions but not by the number of novel tokens contained within the irrelevant sequence. The results favor an interference-by-process approach to the disruption of serial memory by irrelevant sound over approaches based on notions of interference by content and/or interference by depletion of attentional resources.