Emotional Vocalizations Cause Auditory Distraction That Affects Word Repetition and Behavioral Listening Effort

Area of Science:

• Auditory perception
• Human-computer interaction
• Cognitive psychology

Background:

• Task-irrelevant sounds can impair speech recognition and increase listening effort.
• Stimulus valence (pleasantness/unpleasantness) influences the distracting nature of non-speech sounds.
• The impact of human vocalizations on auditory distraction and listening effort requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effect of task-irrelevant human vocalizations on word repetition performance.
• To assess the impact of these vocalizations on behavioral listening effort.
• To determine if vocalization valence and background noise influence these effects.

Main Methods:

• A dual-task paradigm involving word repetition and categorization speed was used.
• Task-irrelevant vocalizations (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral) were presented before target words.
• Performance and response times were measured across conditions of quiet/noise and vocalization valence.

Main Results:

• Background noise impaired word repetition and increased listening effort.
• Valenced vocalizations (pleasant/unpleasant) increased listening effort compared to neutral ones.
• No significant distraction was found in word recognition performance; however, behavioral listening effort was affected by irrelevant vocalizations.

Conclusions:

• Task-irrelevant vocalizations increase behavioral listening effort, irrespective of valence or background noise.
• Distraction effects were observed in listening effort, not in word recognition performance.
• Findings suggest implications for understanding auditory distraction in complex real-world environments.