Sound source location modulates the irrelevant-sound effect
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 5, 2026

An Automated System for Sound Localization Testing in Hearing-Impaired Listeners
Published on: March 13, 2026
Axel Buchner1, Raoul Bell, Klaus Rothermund
1Institut für Experimentelle Psychologie, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf, Germany. axel.buchner@uni-duesseldorf.de
Abstract:
Participants memorized lists of visually presented digits in silence or while ignoring distractor sounds that either came from the front and thus from the direction in which participants' attention was oriented, or from behind. Distractor sounds impaired recall performance, but the largest impairment was observed when the sound source was directionally close to the frontal visual target display. The results are consistent with the assumption of cross-modal attentional links in models of attention, and they are problematic for explanations of the irrelevant-sound effect within working memory models that do not specify an explicit role of attention in the maintenance of information for immediate serial recall.
Related Concept Videos
Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location
Place theory, or place coding, suggests that different pitches are heard because various sound waves activate specific locations along the cochlea's basilar membrane. The brain determines the pitch of a sound by identifying...
Hearing
Sound Intensity
Sound Waves: Interference
The Cochlea
Doppler Effect - II

