Abstract
The results of two experiments are presented which explore the effect of distractor items on face and voice recognition. Following from the suggestion that voice processing is relatively weak compared to face processing, it was anticipated that voice recognition would be more affected by the presentation of distractor items between study and test compared to face recognition. Using a sequential matching task with a fixed interval between study and test that either incorporated distractor items or did not, the results supported our prediction. Face recognition remained strong irrespective of the number of distractor items between study and test. In contrast, voice recognition was significantly impaired by the presence of distractor items regardless of their number (Experiment 1). This pattern remained whether distractor items were highly similar to the targets or not (Experiment 2). These results offer support for the proposal that voice processing is a relatively vulnerable method of identification.
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Notes
Analysis in signal detection terms enables scrutiny of both sensitivity of discrimination (d’) and bias (C). Analysis of bias here revealed no effects either of the number of intervening stimuli (F (2, 76) < 1, ns), stimulus type (F (1, 38) < 1, ns) or their interaction (F (2, 76) < 1, ns).
As in Experiment 1, analysis of bias is included here to explore the effect of stimulus type, distraction and distractor strength on responding. Only one interaction emerged as a weak effect (distraction x stimulus type: F (2, 122) = 3.23, p < .05, ή2 = .05). However, there was no effect of distraction on bias for faces (F (2, 64) = 1.17, ns) or voices (F (2, 62) = 2.53, ns), and there was no significant difference in levels of bias between faces and voices at either zero distractors (t (63) = −1.53, ns), two distractors (t (63) = 1.20, ns) or four distractors (t (63) = −1.61, ns). This interaction instead seemed to capture a reversal of small levels of bias between faces and voices when there were two distractors. No other main effects of interactions reached significance (Fs < 1.38, ns).
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Stevenage, S.V., Neil, G.J., Barlow, J. et al. The effect of distraction on face and voice recognition. Psychological Research 77, 167–175 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-012-0450-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-012-0450-z