| ARTICLE |
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| Year : 2013 | Volume
: 15
| Issue : 62 | Page : 73--78 |
Mental arithmetic and non-speech office noise: An exploration of interference-by-content
Nick Perham1, Helen Hodgetts2, Simon Banbury3
1 Department of Applied Psychology, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
2 School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
3 CAE, Professional Services, Ottawa, Canada
Correspondence Address:
Nick Perham
Department of Applied Psychology, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Cardiff CF5 2YB
United Kingdom
 Source of Support: United Kingdom’s Economic and Social Research Council, R000239850.,, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/1463-1741.107160
An interference-by-content account of auditory distraction - in which the impairment to task performance derives from the similarity of what is being recalled and what is being ignored - was explored concerning mental arithmetic performance. Participants completed both a serial recall and a mental arithmetic task in the presence of quiet, office noise with speech (OS) and office noise without speech (ONS). Both tasks revealed that the two office noise condition's significantly impaired performance. That the ONS produced this deficit suggests that an interference-by-content account cannot explain impairment to mental arithmetic performance by background sound.
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