The cognitive neuroscience of auditory distraction

The cognitive neuroscience of auditory distraction.

We are often aware of the content of distracting sound, although typically remain unaware of the processes by which that sound is disruptive. Disruption can occur even when the sound is ignored and unrelated to the task being performed. In a recent major development, Gisselgård et al. have used positron emission tomography to reveal how distracting sounds recruit the involvement of dorsolateral...

The Challenges of Cognitive Neuroscience in the 21st Century

Varieties of auditory distraction

Historically, laboratory research on the effects of noise on performance is split into two eras; one, up to the 1970s was concerned with how loud white noise interfered with cognitive and motor tasks (see Jones & Broadbent 1991, for an overview), the other, from the 1980s recognized that sound need not be loud to be distracting, indeed, speech sounds as quiet as a whisper could disrupt cognitiv...

COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE Development of auditory-specific brain rhythm in infants

Human infants rapidly develop their auditory perceptual abilities and acquire culture-specific knowledge in speech and music in the second 6 months of life. In the adult brain, neural rhythm around 10 Hz in the temporal lobes is thought to reflect sound analysis and subsequent cognitive processes such as memory and attention. To study when and how such rhythm emerges in infancy, we examined ele...

Emergence of Cognitive Neuroscience in The Middle East