A shield against distraction

A shield against distraction

N. Halin, J.E. Marsh, A. Hellman, I. Hellstrom and Patrik Sörqvist

Linköping University Post Print

N.B.: When citing this work, cite the original article.

Original Publication:

N. Halin, J.E. Marsh, A. Hellman, I. Hellstrom and Patrik Sörqvist, A shield against distraction,

2014, Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, (3), 1, 31-36.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2014.01.003

Copyright: Elsevier

http://www.elsevier.com/

Postprint available at: Linköping University Electronic Press

ContentslistsavailableatScienceDirect

Journal

of

Applied

Research

in

Memory

and

Cognition

j ou rn a l h o m e p a g e :w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / j a r m a c

A

shield

against

distraction

Niklas

Halin

_,

_John

_E.

_Marsh

_,

_Anna

_Hellman

_,

_Ida

_Hellström

_,

_Patrik

_Sörqvist

b_{SchoolofPsychology,UniversityofCentralLancashire,Preston,UK}

c_{LinnaeusCentreHEAD,SwedishInstituteforDisabilityResearch,LinköpingUniversity,Linköping,Sweden}

a

r

t

i

c

l

e

i

n

f

o

Articlehistory:

Received15October2013

Receivedinrevisedform17January2014 Accepted20January2014

Availableonline28January2014 Keywords: Noise Taskdifficulty Memory Distraction Selectiveattention Workingmemorycapacity

a

b

s

t

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a

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Inthispaper,weapplythebasicideaofatrade-offbetweenthelevelofconcentrationanddistractibility totestwhetheramanipulationoftaskdifficultycanshieldagainstdistraction.Participantsread,either inquietorwithaspeechnoisebackground,textsthatweredisplayedeitherinaneasy-to-readora hard-to-readfont.Backgroundspeechimpairedproserecall,butonlywhenthetextwasdisplayedin theeasy-to-readfont.Mostimportantly,recallwasbetterinthebackgroundspeechconditionfor hard-to-readthanforeasy-to-readtexts.Moreover,individualdifferencesinworkingmemorycapacitywere relatedtothemagnitudeofdisruption,butonlyintheeasy-to-readcondition.Makingataskmore dif-ficultcansometimesfacilitateselectiveattentioninnoisyworkenvironmentsbypromotingfocal-task engagement.

©2014TheAuthors.PublishedbyElsevierInc.onbehalfofSocietyforAppliedResearchinMemory andCognition.

Thevigilant abilityof theauditorysystemisexceptional for detectingeventsintheenvironmentthatmaybevaluableor poten-tiallydangerous.Inmodernsociety,however,acontinuousanalysis oftheauditoryenvironmentoftenbecomesdistractingratherthan helpful.For instance,backgroundspeechtypically impairsword processedwriting(Sörqvist,Nöstl,&Halin,2012a),reading com-prehension (Oswald, Tremblay, & Jones, 2000; Sörqvist, Halin, &Hygge,2010),proofreading(Halin,Marsh,Haga,Holmgren, & Sörqvist,2013;Venetjoki,Kaarela-Toumaala,Keskinen,&Hongisto, 2007), prose memory (Bell, Buchner, & Mund, 2008; Sörqvist, 2010a)andotherworkrelated tasks(BanburyandBerry,1997, 1998;Beaman, 2005;Jahncke,Hygge, Halin,Green,& Dimberg, 2011;Morris&Jones,1991).Innoisyconditions,thehumanmind mustfindawaytoattenuatetheundesiredinfluenceoftheauditory analysis.

Onewayinwhichthis canbeaccomplishedisbyincreasing theamountofengagementwithafocaltask(inessence, concen-tratingharder).Theviewwetakehereis thattaskengagement reflectsstrategiccognitivecontrolthatprotectsagainstdistraction, andis,inpart,modulatedbyfactorssuchaswarningsofimpeding

∗ Correspondingauthorat:DepartmentofBuilding,EnergyandEnvironmental Engineering,UniversityofGävle,SE-80176Gävle,Sweden.Tel.:+46704850249.

E-mailaddress:niklas.halin@hig.se(N.Halin).

1 _{Theseauthorscontributedequallytothispaper.}

distraction (Hughes, Hurlstone, Marsh, Vachon, & Jones, 2013; Sussman,Winkler,&Schröger,2003),incentivestoperformwell (Engelmann,Damaraju,Padmala,&Pessoa,2009)andtask diffi-culty(Halinetal.,2013).Strategiccognitivecontroltakestheform ofamoresteadfastlocus-of-attention–thusoverrulingthe call-for-attentionbytask-irrelevantinformation–andamoreconstrained neuralprocessingofthetask-irrelevantinformationatthesensory stage(Sörqvist&Rönnberg,2014).

Laboratorystudieshaveshownthatthedisruptionfrom

task-irrelevant background noise is attenuated when a participant

engageswithmoredifficultto-be-attendedvisualtasks(Hughes, Hurlstone,Marsh,Vachon,&Jones,2013;Kim,Kim,&Chun,2005; SanMiguel, Corral, & Escera, 2008). For example, the auditory-perceptualanalysisoftask-irrelevantbackgroundsound,asshown inauditorybrainstemresponses,isattenuatedwhenthe partici-pantsundertakeadifficultversionofthevisual-verbaln-backtask (i.e.,3-back) incomparison withaneasier version(i.e.,1-back;

Sörqvist,Stenfelt,&Rönnberg,2012;seealsoHairston,Letowski, &McDowell, 2013).Moreover, a deviantsound that is embed-ded in anotherwise repetitivesoundsequence (e.g.,thesound “k”inthesequence “cccccckcc”)impairstheabilitytoreport back,inorder,avisuallypresentedsequenceofitems(i.e.,serial short-termmemory),becausethedeviantsoundcaptures atten-tion.Ifthevisuallypresenteditemsaremaskedbyvisualnoise, however,serialshort-termmemoryisspared,asthedeviantsound losesitscapacitytocaptureattention(Hughesetal.,2013).Ina recentstudy,weattemptedtobridgetheselaboratoryfindingsto anappliedcontext(Halinetal.,2013).Morespecifically,weasked participantstoundertakea proofreadingtask(i.e.,tosearchfor

2211-3681©2014TheAuthors.PublishedbyElsevierInc.onbehalfofSocietyforAppliedResearchinMemoryandCognition.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2014.01.003

Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

32 N.Halinetal./JournalofAppliedResearchinMemoryandCognition3(2014)31–36

semantic/contextualerrorsinwrittentexts)againstabackground ofspeechorinsilence.InExperiment1,thetextsweredisplayed ineitheraneasy-to-readfont(TimesNewRoman)ora hard-to-readfont(Haettenschweiler);andinExperiment2,alltextswere displayedintheeasy-to-readfontbuttheywereeithermasked byvisualnoiseornotmaskedbyvisualnoise.Inbothexperiments, backgroundspeechimpairedproofreadingforsemantic/contextual

errors, but only when the text was easy to read, not when it

washard to read (presented in a hard-to-read font or masked

byvisualnoise).Across-experimentalanalysisshowedthatthe twoways ofmanipulating taskdifficultyshielded from distrac-tioninfunctionallysimilarways.Arguably,highertaskdifficulty promotesfocal-taskengagement,reducestheneuralprocessing ofbackgroundsound(Sörqvist,Stenfelt,&Rönnberg,2012)and potentiatesthecapabilitytoblockthesound’scallforattention (Hughesetal.,2013).

One factor that influences distractibility is, thus, task diffi-culty.Anotherinfluentialfactorinmoderatingthesusceptibility todistractionisworkingmemorycapacity(Engle,2002;Sörqvist &Rönnberg, 2014).High-capacity individualsare generally less susceptibletoauditorydistractionthantheirlow-capacity coun-terparts (Sörqvist, 2010c), both in the context of cross-modal distraction (e.g., Sörqvist et al., 2012b) and in the context of within-modaldistraction(Sörqvist&Rönnberg,2012),andacross awidevarietyoftasksincludingvisual-verbalshort-term mem-ory(Beaman,2004;Sörqvist,2010b)andlong-termmemoryfor writtenprose(Sörqvist,2010a;Sörqvist,Ljungberg,&Ljung,2010). For example,in a study bySörqvistet al. (2010b),participants firstundertookacomplex-spantaskcalledsize-comparisonspan (SICSPAN)that was designed tomeasure individual differences inworking memorycapacity. Next, theparticipantsread prose passages, either in silence or against a background of speech. Backgroundspeechdisruptedmemoryforprose:Fewerquestions

–tapping long-termmemoryfor thetext –were subsequently

answeredcorrectlywhenthetextshadbeenstudiedinthe pres-enceofbackgroundspeechascomparedtosilence.Thisdisruption ofprosememorybybackgroundspeech,however,wasgreaterfor participantswithlowworkingmemorycapacity.

Inpreviousexperimentsthathavetestedtherelationbetween individualdifferencesinworkingmemorycapacityandeffectsof backgroundspeechonlong-termmemoryforprose(e.g.,Sörqvist, 2010a;Sörqvist,Ljungberg,etal.,2010),thetexthasbeendisplayed inan easy-to-readfont andthere hasbeennomanipulation of taskdifficulty.Aninterestingextension ofthis paradigmwould

beto test whetherthe relationship between workingmemory

capacityanddistractibilityismodulatedbyataskdifficulty manip-ulation(e.g.,bymanipulatingthereadabilityofthetextbychanging fonttype).Onepossibilityisthatlow-capacityindividuals,who– under‘normal’conditions–arerelativelysusceptibletodistraction, willbeaidedbytheincreaseintaskdifficulty(e.g.,the hard-to-readfonthelpsthemachieveasteadfastlocus-of-attention)and thereby become less susceptible to distraction.Conversely, the high-capacityindividuals,whoarerelativelyimmuneto distrac-tionunder‘normal’conditionsmaynotexperienceanybenefitfrom anincreaseintaskdifficulty,becausetheirlocus-of-attentionis alreadysteadfast.Anincrease intaskdifficultycould,therefore, reducethegapinsusceptibilitytodistractionthatexistsbetween low-andhigh-capacityindividuals.

Inthispaper,weextendthebasicideaofatrade-offbetween taskdifficultanddistractibilitytoataskthatisparticularlyrelevant toeducationalsettings:Memoryforwrittenprose.Theparticipants readtextsthat weredisplayedeitherinaneasy-to-read(Times NewRoman)orahard-to-readfont(Haettenschweiler).Reading wasundertakeneitherinaquietenvironmentoraccompaniedby a speechnoisebackground,and theparticipants wererequired toattempttorememberasmuchofthetextaspossibleforlater

recall.Weexpectedtofindacross-overinteraction,demonstrating disruptionfromthebackgroundspeech,butonlywhenthetext wasdisplayedinaneasy-to-readfont,notwhenitwasdisplayed in a hard-to-readfont. Moreover, weexplored therelationship betweenindividualdifferencesinworkingmemorycapacityand distractibilityinthesetwotaskdifficultyconditions,respectively.

1. Methods

1.1. Participants

Thirty-twoSwedishstudentsparticipatedforasmall honorar-ium.Allreportednormalhearing,normalorcorrected-to-normal visionandSwedishastheirnativelanguage.

1.2. Materials

Sound.Thebackgroundspeechwascomprisedofamalevoice that described a fictitious culture called the Ansarians. It was

recorded in an echo-free chamber and played back through

SennheiserHD202headphones(Leq_≈65dBA).

Readingspeed.Weaskedparticipantstoreadtwoshortertexts (160wordslong)abouttheplanetsMarsandNeptune.Alltexts intheexperimentwerewritteninSwedish(fontsize12pt.and spacingbetweenlines1.00),inthetwofontsTimesNewRoman (easy-to-read)andHaettenschweiler(hard-to-read),andwere dis-playedonacomputerscreenwithbothmarginsevenlyadjusted. Thecomputermeasuredthetimeittooktoreadeachtext.

Memory for prose. We adopted a modified version of a test

that hasbeenused previously tomeasure memoryfor written

prose(Sörqvist,2010a)andspokendiscourse(Sörqvist&Rönnberg, 2012).Fourmemorytestsweredeveloped.Eachtesthada read-ingphase and a testphase. In thereading phase,5 paragraphs (approximately85wordseach)aboutfictitiouscultures(notthe samecultureastheonedescribedinthebackgroundspeech)were displayedsimultaneouslyonthecomputerscreen.Theparagraphs described,forexample,theriseoftheculture,advancesin technol-ogy,andwarfare.Theparagraphsweredisplayedfor4min.When theallocatedtimewasup,thecomputermovedtothetestphase.

Prosememorywastestedwith20multiple-choicequestions(5

optionsperquestion;4questionsperparagraph)thatconcerned detailedinformationinthetext(e.g.,“Howmanyregionswerethe landofTimaddividedin?”).Thequestionswerepresented sequen-tially(inArialfont).Thefirstfourquestionsconcernedthefirsttext paragraph;thenextfourconcernedthesecondparagraph,andso on.Theparticipantswereallowedtouseamaximumof15sfor eachquestion.

Workingmemorycapacitytask.We usedthesize-comparison

span(SICSPAN)tasktotapworkingmemorycapacity(Sörqvist, Ljungberg,etal.,2010).Inthistask,pairsofwordswerepresented onthecomputerscreenandparticipantswererequiredtocompare theminsize(e.g.,“IsSTRAWBERRYbiggerthanPINEAPPLE?”). Par-ticipantsansweredthisquestionbyusingthe‘Y’and‘N’keysonthe keyboard.Theparticipantshadamaximumof5storespondtoeach comparison.Afteraresponse,orifthetimewasup,thecomputer screenwentblankfor500ms.Andthereafter,ato-be-remembered wordwaspresented(e.g.,PAPAYA)for800ms.Thisprocedurewas repeatedtwotosixtimesbeforeparticipantswereaskedtorecall theto-be-rememberedwordsinserialorderbytypingwiththe key-board.Therecallphasewasself-paced.Allpresentedwordswithin alistweredrawnfromthesamesemanticcategory(e.g.,Fruits) andeachword(andcategory)appearedonlyonceduringthetask. Thetotalnumberoflistswas10(i.e.,twoofeachlistlength)and thelistswerepresentedinafixedascendingorder(e.g.,starting withthetwo-wordlists)forallparticipants.TheirSICSPANscore

40% 50% 60% 70%

Easy-to-read Hard-to-read

Pe rcent ag e c o rr ect Task difficulty Silence Speech

Fig.1.Meannumberofthepercentageofcorrectanswersonatestofmemory forprosedisplayedintwotaskdifficultyconditions(easy-to-readand hard-to-readtexts)andreadintwobackgroundconditions(silenceandbackgroundspeech noise).

wasbasedonastrictserialrecallcriterionwherebytheyreceived onepointforeachto-be-rememberedwordthatwasplacedinthe correctserialposition.

1.3. Procedureanddesign

Awithin-participantdesignwasusedwithtwofactors:Task difficulty(easy-to-readvs.hard-to-readfont)andbackground con-dition(silencevs.backgroundspeech).Participantswereinstructed

throughout theexperiment towear headphones, toignoreany

sound,andtoworkasfastastheycouldwithoutcompromising accuracy.Readingspeedwasmeasuredfirstbyrequesting partici-pantstoreadthetwotextsabouttheplanetsMarsandNeptune (writtenin thetwofontsrespectively)insilence(the presenta-tionorderofthistaskwascounterbalancedbetweenparticipants). Next, participantsundertookthe fourmemorytests. The back-groundspeechwasplayedduringthereadingphaseoftwoofthe fourmemorytests.Thepresentationorderbetweeneasy-to-read font(TimesNewRoman)andhardto-readfont(Haettenschweiler),

betweenthetwobackgroundconditions, andbetweenthefour

memorytests,wascounterbalancedbetweenparticipants.After thememorytests,theparticipantswereaskedtorate(ona7-point scale)howdemandingandhowdifficultthetaskwasinthetwo taskdifficultyconditions,respectively.Finally,theyconductedthe SICSPANtaskinsilence.Inall,theexperimenttookapproximately 35min.

2. Results

2.1. Taskdifficultyratingsandreadingspeed

Thetaskwasperceivedasmoredifficult(M=2.63vs.M=4.88, t(31)=7.31,p<.001)andmoredemanding(M=2.41vs.M=5.28, t(31)=8.35,p<.001)whenthetextwasdisplayedinthe hard-to-readcomparedwiththeeasy-to-readfont.Thiscorroboratesthe effectivenessofthefontmanipulationinmakingthetaskmore dif-ficult.Readingtooksomewhatlongerwiththehard-to-readfont butthisdifferencewasnotsignificant(M=53.31svs.M=51.92s, t(31)=0.93,p=.359).Oneinterpretationoftheseresultsisthatthe participantscompensatedforthegreaterdemandonreadingby concentratingharderandthusengagingmorewiththetask. 2.2. Memoryforwrittenprose

AscanbeseeninFig.1,thisgreaterneedforconcentration

ben-efitedprosememory.Thebackgroundspeechimpairedmemory

whenthetextwaseasy-to-readbutnotwhenthetextwas hard-to-read. Mostimportantly,recall wasbetter fortexts read in a hard-to-readfontagainstaspeechnoisebackgroundthanfortexts read inaneasy-to-readfontinthesamebackgroundcondition. Thisconclusionwassupportedbya2(taskdifficulty:easy-to-read vs.hard-to-readfont)×2(backgroundcondition:Silencevs. back-groundspeech) analysisofvariance thatrevealednosignificant maineffectoftaskdifficulty,F(1,31)=0.12,p=.729,2

p=.004,and

nosignificantmaineffectofbackgroundcondition,F(1,31)=1.39, p=.234,2

p=.04,butasignificantinteractionbetweenthetwo

fac-tors,F(1,31)=31.01,p=.004,2

p=.23.Simplemaineffectsanalysis

(withLSDadjustment)showedthatrecallwasimpairedby back-groundspeechintheeasy-to-readcondition,p=.002,d=0.48,but notinthehard-to-readcondition,p=.398,d=0.16.Furthermore, recallwasbetterinthepresenceofbackgroundspeechwhenthe textwashard-to-readcomparedtowhentextwaseasy-to-read, p=.032,d=0.37.

2.3. Relationbetweenworkingmemorycapacityand distractibility

Toanalyzetherelationshipbetweenworkingmemorycapacity anddistractibilityinthetwotaskdifficultyconditions,weused thedifferencescores (i.e.,subtractingthememoryscore in the silentconditionwiththememoryscoreinthebackgroundspeech condition)forbothtaskdifficultyconditions,respectively,and cor-relatedthesedifferencescoreswiththeSICSPANscores.Thesilence andbackgroundspeechvariables hadaninternalconsistencyof ˛=.80 (silence, SD=0.16; background speech, SD=0.15) in the easy-to-readcondition,and˛=.65(silence,SD=0.17;background speech,SD=0.16)inthehard-to-readcondition.AsshowninFig.2, higherSICSPANscoreswereassociatedwithasmallerdistraction magnitudewhenthetextwasdisplayedinaneasy-to-readfont, r(30)=−.35,p=.050,95%CI[−.62,−.002],but nosuch relation-shipwasfoundwhenthetextwasdisplayedinahard-to-readfont, r(30)=−.05,p=.779,95%CI [−.39,.30].However,thedifference betweenthetwor-values(Meng,Rosenthal,&Rubin,1992)was notstatisticallysignificant,z=−1.01,p=.312.

3. Discussion

Manyexperimentshaveshownthatmemoryforwrittenprose

isimpairediftheproseisreadinthepresenceofbackgroundspeech (e.g.,Banbury &Berry, 1998; Bell etal., 2008; Sörqvist,2010a; Sörqvist,Ljungberg,etal., 2010).Theexperiment reportedhere qualifiesthisgeneralfinding,bydemonstratingthatbackground speechimpairsmemoryofwrittenprose,butonlywhenthetextis easytoread,notwhenthetextisdisplayedinahard-to-readfont. Mostimportantly,proserecallwasbetterinthepresenceof back-groundspeechwhenthetextwasdisplayedinahard-to-readfont comparedtoaneasy-to-readfont.Itseems,therefore,thathigher taskdifficultycanfacilitateselectiveattentionandshieldagainst distraction.

Theresultsreportedhereextendtheassumptionofatrade-off betweentaskdifficultyanddistractibility,asshownin laboratory-motivatedstudies(Hughesetal.,2013;Kimetal.,2005;SanMiguel, Corral,&Escera,2008;Sörqvist,Stenfelt,&Rönnberg,2012),into anappliedcontext,especiallyrelevantforeducationalsettings.The resultscorroboratethefindingsofHalinetal.(2013):The poten-tially disruptive effects of background speech on proofreading becomemanifestonlywhenthetextisdisplayedinaneasy-to-read font,notwhenitisdisplayedinahard-to-readfont.Theexperiment reportedhereextendsthesefindingsbyshowingthatthe disrup-tionbybackgroundspeechofmemoryforwrittenprosecanalsobe attenuatedbyatask-engagementmanipulation.Basedonwhatis

34 N.Halinetal./JournalofAppliedResearchinMemoryandCognition3(2014)31–36

Fig.2.Thefigureshowstherelationshipbetweenindividualdifferencesinworkingmemorycapacity(i.e.,size-comparisonspanscores)andthemagnitudeoftheeffectsof backgroundspeechonproserecall(allz-values)intheeasy-to-readcondition(panelA)andinthehard-to-readcondition(panelB).

knownfromthebasicresearchfindings,ourinterpretationofthese resultsisthatincreasedtaskdifficultyleadstoamoresteadfast locus-of-attention(Hughesetal.,2013),andamoreconstrained

neural auditory-sensory processing of the background sound

(Sörqvist,Stenfelt,&Rönnberg,2012).Becauseofthis,thesound losesitscapabilitytocaptureattentionanddisruptperformance.

Individual differences in person-specific distractibility were associatedwithindividualdifferencesinworkingmemory capac-ity,atleastwhenthetextwasdisplayedinaneasy-to-readfont. Therewasnorelationshipbetweenworkingmemorycapacityand distractibilitywhenthetextwasdisplayedinahard-to-readfont. Theabsenceofarelationshipinthehard-to-readfontcondition couldbeduetotherelativelysmallsamplesizeandtherelatively lowstatisticalreliabilityinthehard-to-readcondition.Becauseof theselimitations,theinterpretationof theindividual difference analysesarequestionable,especiallyastherelationshipbetween workingmemorycapacityand distractibilityintheeasy-to-read conditiondidnotdifferinmagnitudefromthecorresponding rela-tionshipinthehard-to-readcondition.Yet,theresultsreported heremayleadtoanexplanationoftheoften-replicatedfindingof arelationbetweenworkingmemorycapacityanddistractibility (seeSörqvist,2010c;Sörqvist&Rönnberg,2014,forreviews).The typicalfindingisthatworkingmemorycapacityisrelatedtothe differencebetweena baselineconditionwithoutdistractionand aconditionwithdistraction(Domkin,Sörqvist,&Richter,2013; Rönnbergetal.,2013;Sörqvist,Stenfelt,&Rönnberg,2012).For example,thedifferencebetweenmemoryforatextreadinsilence andforatextreadagainstabackgroundofspeechisrelatedto individualdifferencesin workingmemorycapacity,under ‘nor-mal’taskconditions(e.g.,whenthefontoftheto-be-remembered textisordinary;Sörqvist,Ljungberg,etal.,2010).Onepossibility isthatlow-capacityparticipants,whocannotengendera locus-of-attentionsteadfastenoughtoresistdistractionundernormal taskconditions(i.e.,whenthefontiseasytoread),whereinthis relationshipbetweenworkingmemorycapacityand distractibil-ityemerges,arehelpedwhentaskdifficultyincreases(i.e.,when thefontishardtoread),astheyareforcedtoconcentrateharder (thereby boosting cognitive control). High-capacity individuals, whohavealocus-of-attentionsteadfastenoughalreadyinthe nor-maltaskconditions,donotbenefitasmuchfromanincreaseintask difficulty.Aslow-capacityindividualsapproachthecognitive con-trolabilitiesoftheirhigh-capacitycounterpartsunderhightask difficultyconditions,therelationshipbetweenworkingmemory capacityanddistractibilitybecomeslesspronounced.

3.1. Practicalapplications

Makinga taskmore difficult(e.g., byforcing a more disflu-entreading)cansometimesfacilitatememory(Diemand-Yauman, Oppenheimer,&Vaughan,2010)andproblemsolving(Thompson etal.,2013)byleadingpeopletodeploydeeperprocessing strate-gies,withbetterperformanceasanoutcome(Alter,Oppenheimer, Epley,&Eyre,2007).Researchon“desirabledifficulties”indicates thatincreasedtaskdifficultyhasitsgreatestbeneficialimpactfor learninginthelongterm,whiletheshorttermbenefitsare rel-ativelylimited(Bjork,1994).Our resultshighlightthepotential benefitsofdesirabledifficultiesalsointheshortterm,especially innoisyworkenvironments.

As is well known, noise impairs learning (Hygge, Evans, & Bullinger,2002;Klatte,Bergstroem,&Lachmann,2013)andcan beharmfultoperformanceinopenoffices(Jahnckeetal.,2011; Mak&Lui,2012)andotherenvironmentsthatrequireintellectual

work. The simple means with which task engagement can be

manipulated,and distraction thereby attenuated, maynot only serve as a practical intervention to attenuate the impairment producedbysoundtotheperformanceofcognitivetasksinoffice

andlearning environments.Itcanalsoreducethedistractibility

associated with specific populations of individuals with poor

attentionalcontrol,suchasthosewithADHD(Pelletier,Hodgetts, Lafleur,Vincent,&Tremblay,2013).AsADHDindividualstypically

have lower working memory capacity than their counterparts

(Martinussen, Hayden, Hogg-Johnson, & Tannock, 2005), the relationshipsbetweenindividualdifferencesinworkingmemory capacity and distractibility speak in favor of this possibility. It shouldbenoted,however,thatdisfluencydoesnotalwaysleadto amoredesirabledifficulty(Yue,Castel,&Bjork,2013).Exploring theboundaryconditionsofdesirabledifficultyinthecontextof auditorydistractionisthereforeatargetforfutureresearch.

Funding

Theresearchreportedinthispaperwasfinanciallysupported byagrantfromStiftelsenRiksbankensJubileumsfond(P11-0617:1) awardedtoPatrikSörqvist.

4. ConflictsofInterest

Thegrantprovidershadnoinvolvementinthestudydesignor writingofthispaper.Theauthorshavenoconflictofinterest.

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