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Auditory Distraction During Reading: A Bayesian Meta-Analysis of a Continuing Controversy

Everyday reading occurs in different settings, such as on the train to work, in a busy cafeteria, or at home while listening to music. In these situations, readers are exposed to external auditory stimulation from nearby noise, speech, or music that may distract them from their task and reduce their...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Vasilev, Martin R., Kirkby, Julie A., Angele, Bernhard
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6139986/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29958067
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1745691617747398
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author Vasilev, Martin R.
Kirkby, Julie A.
Angele, Bernhard
author_facet Vasilev, Martin R.
Kirkby, Julie A.
Angele, Bernhard
author_sort Vasilev, Martin R.
collection PubMed
description Everyday reading occurs in different settings, such as on the train to work, in a busy cafeteria, or at home while listening to music. In these situations, readers are exposed to external auditory stimulation from nearby noise, speech, or music that may distract them from their task and reduce their comprehension. Although many studies have investigated auditory-distraction effects during reading, the results have proved to be inconsistent and sometimes even contradictory. In addition, the broader theoretical implications of the findings have not always been explicitly considered. We report a Bayesian meta-analysis of 65 studies on auditory-distraction effects during reading and use metaregression models to test predictions derived from existing theories. The results showed that background noise, speech, and music all have a small but reliably detrimental effect on reading performance. The degree of disruption in reading comprehension did not generally differ between adults and children. Intelligible speech and lyrical music resulted in the biggest distraction. Although this last result is consistent with theories of semantic distraction, there was also reliable distraction by noise. It is argued that new theoretical models are needed that can account for distraction by both background speech and noise.
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spelling pubmed-61399862018-09-25 Auditory Distraction During Reading: A Bayesian Meta-Analysis of a Continuing Controversy Vasilev, Martin R. Kirkby, Julie A. Angele, Bernhard Perspect Psychol Sci Article Everyday reading occurs in different settings, such as on the train to work, in a busy cafeteria, or at home while listening to music. In these situations, readers are exposed to external auditory stimulation from nearby noise, speech, or music that may distract them from their task and reduce their comprehension. Although many studies have investigated auditory-distraction effects during reading, the results have proved to be inconsistent and sometimes even contradictory. In addition, the broader theoretical implications of the findings have not always been explicitly considered. We report a Bayesian meta-analysis of 65 studies on auditory-distraction effects during reading and use metaregression models to test predictions derived from existing theories. The results showed that background noise, speech, and music all have a small but reliably detrimental effect on reading performance. The degree of disruption in reading comprehension did not generally differ between adults and children. Intelligible speech and lyrical music resulted in the biggest distraction. Although this last result is consistent with theories of semantic distraction, there was also reliable distraction by noise. It is argued that new theoretical models are needed that can account for distraction by both background speech and noise. SAGE Publications 2018-06-29 2018-09 /pmc/articles/PMC6139986/ /pubmed/29958067 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1745691617747398 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Article
Vasilev, Martin R.
Kirkby, Julie A.
Angele, Bernhard
Auditory Distraction During Reading: A Bayesian Meta-Analysis of a Continuing Controversy
title Auditory Distraction During Reading: A Bayesian Meta-Analysis of a Continuing Controversy
title_full Auditory Distraction During Reading: A Bayesian Meta-Analysis of a Continuing Controversy
title_fullStr Auditory Distraction During Reading: A Bayesian Meta-Analysis of a Continuing Controversy
title_full_unstemmed Auditory Distraction During Reading: A Bayesian Meta-Analysis of a Continuing Controversy
title_short Auditory Distraction During Reading: A Bayesian Meta-Analysis of a Continuing Controversy
title_sort auditory distraction during reading: a bayesian meta-analysis of a continuing controversy
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6139986/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29958067
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1745691617747398
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