AN IRRELEVANT SPEECH EFFECT WITH REPEATED AND CONTINUOUS BACKGROUND SPEECH

The irrelevant speech effect is the impairment of task performance by the presentation of to-be-ignored speech stimuli. Typically, the irrel evant speech comprises a variety of sounds, but previous research (e.g ., Jones, Madden, & Miles, 1992) has suggested that the deleterious ef fect of background speech is virtually eliminated if the speech compri ses repetitions of a sound (e.g., ''be, be, be'') or a single continuo us sound (e.g., ''beeeeeee''). Four experiments are reported that chal lenge this finding. Experiments 1, 2, and 4 show a substantial impairm ent in serial recall performance in the presence of a repeated sound, and Experiments 3 and 4 show a similar impairment of serial recall in the presence of a continuous sound. The relevance of these findings to several explanations of the irrelevant speech effect is discussed.