When people estimate the summative carbon footprint of a sequence of events, how are the individual events integrated? In three experiments, we found that summative carbon footprint judgments of item sequences are disproportionately influenced by items at the end of the sequence in comparison with those at the beginning—a recency effect. When, for example, sequences ended with a low carbon footprint item, they were assigned a lower carbon footprint than corresponding sequences with an identical content but different item order. The results also revealed that a green peak (presenting many low carbon footprint items at once) had a relatively large effect on estimates when the peak was contextually distinct from other items in terms of its valence. The results are consistent with an account within which distinctiveness of representations within short-term memory differentially influences decision-making and suggest that memory processes bias the perceived environmental footprint of temporally separated instances.

The process-oriented account of auditory distraction suggests that task-disruption is a consequence of the joint action of task- and sound-related processes. Here, four experiments put this view to the test by examining the extent to which to-be-ignored melodies (with or without lyrics) influence vocal-motor processing. Using song retrieval tasks (i.e., reproduction of melodies or lyrics from long-term memory), the results revealed a pattern of disruption that was consistent with an interference-by-process view: disruption depended jointly on the nature of the vocal-motor retrieval (e.g., melody retrieval via humming vs. spoken lyrics) and the characteristics of the sound (whether it contained lyrics and was familiar to the participants). Furthermore, the sound properties, influential in disrupting song reproduction, were not influential for disrupting visual-verbal short-term memory—a task that is arguably underpinned by non-semantic vocal-motor planning processes. Generally, these results cohere better with the process-oriented view, in comparison with competing accounts (e.g., interference-by-content).

In an influential article, Jones et al. (1995) provide evidence that auditory distraction by changing relative to repetitive auditory distracters (the changing-state effect) did not differ between a visual–verbal and visual–spatial serial recall task, providing evidence for an amodal mechanism for the representation of serial order in short-term memory that transcends modalities. This finding has been highly influential for theories of short-term memory and auditory distraction. However, evidence vis-à-vis the robustness of this result is sorely lacking. Here, two high-powered replications of Jones et al.’s (1995) crucial Experiment 4 were undertaken. In the first partial replication (n = 64), a fully within-participants design was adopted, wherein participants undertook both the visual–verbal and visual–spatial serial recall tasks under different irrelevant sound conditions, without a retention period. The second near-identical replication (n = 128), incorporated a retention period and implemented the task-modality manipulation as a between-participants factor, as per the original Jones et al. (1995; Experiment 4) study. In both experiments, the changing-state effect was observed for visual–verbal serial recall but not for visual–spatial serial recall. The results are consistent with modular and interference-based accounts of distraction and challenge some aspects of functional equivalence accounts.

When asked to estimate the carbon footprint of a bundle of low carbon footprint and high carbon footprint items, people typically report a lower value compared to estimating the high carbon footprint items alone. This finding is called the negative footprint illusion. Previous research suggests that people might be made less susceptible to this effect depending on whether they are asked to evaluate how environmentally friendly or how environmentally damaging the items are. In the current study, we used large instead of small stimulus sets (i.e. a more powerful experimental manipulation than that in previous research) and show under these circumstances it does not matter whether participants are required to make friendliness or damaging estimates. The role of attribute substitution along with other conceptual and methodological issues to the negative footprint illusion are discussed, particularly in relation to a recent paper by Gorissen et al. [2024. Green versus grey framing: Exploring the mechanism behind the negative footprint illusion in environmental sustainability assessments. Sustainability, 16(4), 1411]. 

This study investigated whether background speech impairs lexical processing and how speech characteristics modulate such influence based on task type. Chinese character pairs were displayed to native Chinese readers under four auditory conditions: normal Chinese speech, phonotactically legal but meaningless speech, spectrally-rotated speech (i.e. meaningless sound with no accessible phonological form), or silence. Participants were tasked with determining whether the presented character pair shared the same meaning (semantic judgment), or the same initial phoneme (phonological judgment). Participants performed better and faster in the semantic than in the phonological judgment task. Phonological properties of meaningless speech prolonged participants’ reaction times in the phonological but not the semantic judgment task, whilst the semantic properties of speech only delayed reaction times in the semantic judgment task. The results indicate that background speech disrupts lexical processing, with the nature of the primary task affecting the extent of phonological and semantic disruption.

Creative problem solving is often viewed as a search process. However, little is known about the factors that impact this process. To address this question, we conducted two studies to examine whether task characteristics and task-switching influence performance on Remote Associates Test (RAT) problems - problems commonly used to measure creativity and study the creative search process. Consistent with prior research, we found that RAT problem-solving performance was positively associated with the relatedness between the answer and the problem. The association was strongest when the amount of competition within the initial search space was low. Moreover, this interaction was observed irrespective of the methods used to measure the task characteristics. By contrast, we did not replicate the positive effect of task-switching on RAT problem-solving accuracy found in previous studies. However, our findings suggest that task-switching may improve problem-solving speed and facilitate a broader search. Implications for future research are discussed.

Modern technology allows for the control of learning and work environments to an unprecedented degree. Therefore, the focus of research shifts from how learning and work performance are passively affected by environmental factors to how people actively shape their own learning and work experiences. This includes task-irrelevant stimuli and task interruptions. For instance, modern headphones allow one to switch between two modes: Active noise cancelling eliminates all background sounds while acoustic transparency allows certain signals to pass through the headphones, creating a customisable audio space. Modern devices also allow us to plan certain task interruptions (for example, by email alerts) in advance. This gives users unprecedented autonomy over their learning and work environments. However, increased control does not necessarily imply that these environments are free of distraction and interruptions. In fact, quite the opposite is true: Modern-day digital learning and work environments are full of distractions and interruptions. With users’ increased control over their learning and work environments, new research questions arise that emphasise the active role of the individual in shaping their own learning and work experiences:

• Are people capable of distinguishing between harmful and helpful task-irrelevant stimuli and activities?
• Can the harmful aspects of distractions and interruptions be brought under cognitive control?
• Are distraction and task interruptions always harmful or are they sometimes helpful? 

Within this Special Issue, we primarily focus on the following emerging trends in distraction and attention.

The Deese-Roediger and McDermott (DRM) paradigm and visually guided saccade tasks are both prominent research tools in their own right. This study introduces a novel DRM-Saccade paradigm, merging both methodologies. We used rule-based saccadic eye movements whereby participants were presented with items at test and were asked to make a saccade to the left or right of the item to denote a recognition or non-recognition decision. We measured old/new recognition decisions and saccadic latencies. Experiment 1 used a pro/anti saccade task to a single target. We found slower saccadic latencies for correct rejection of critical lures, but no latency difference between correct recognition of studied items and false recognition of critical lures. Experiment 2 used a two-target saccade task and also measured corrective saccades. Findings corroborated those from Experiment 1. Participants adjusted their initial decisions to increase accurate recognition of studied items and rejection of unrelated lures but there were no such corrections for critical lures. We argue that rapid saccades indicate cognitive processing driven by familiarity thresholds. These occur before slower source-monitoring is able to process any conflict. The DRM-Saccade task could effectively track real-time cognitive resource use during recognition decisions.

What causes interference in short-term memory? We report the novel finding that immediate memory for visually-presented verbal items is sensitive to disruption from task-irrelevant vibrotactile stimuli. Specifically, short-term memory for a visual sequence is disrupted by a concurrently presented sequence of vibrations, but only when the vibrotactile sequence entails change (when the sequence “jumps” between the two hands). The impact on visual-verbal serial recall was similar in magnitude to that for auditory stimuli (Experiment 1). Performance of the missing item task, requiring recall of item-identity rather than item-order, was unaffected by changing-state vibrotactile stimuli (Experiment 2), as with changing-state auditory stimuli. Moreover, the predictability of the changing-state sequence did not modulate the magnitude of the effect, arguing against an attention-capture conceptualisation (Experiment 3). Results support the view that interference in short-term memory is produced by conflict between incompatible, amodal serial-ordering processes (interference-by-process) rather than interference between similar representational codes (interference-by-content).