The effects of irrelevant speech on immediate free recall

Abstract

Immediate ordered recall is strongly disrupted by concurrent irrelevant speech even when the speech is unfamiliar to the subject. This effect has been replicated in many experiments with immediate serial recall. In the present study, we examined the effect of speech on immediate free recall of lists of 16 words presented visually. No impairment in the speech condition was found in comparison with the control, but the same subjects showed a consistent impairment of immediate serial recall under speech in a separate experiment. It is concluded that irrelevant speech impairs immediate phonological memory but does not disrupt performance on either the long- or short-term components of the standard verbal free recall task. © 1990, Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.