Modulation of the irrelevant sound effect by organizational factors: Further evidence from streaming by location

An irrelevant sequence of discrete auditory tokens disrupts serial recall m arkedly if successive tokens differ, but the disruption is less marked if t he sound is repeated. However, the relation of stimulus mismatch and degree of disruption with serial recall seems to be modulated by organizational p rinciples such as streaming by pitch and streaming by location. The current empirical work replicates the finding that the impact of changing sequence s can be reduced if tokens are assigned to different locations in such a wa y as to form separate streams, each containing sequences of repeated tokens . This study shows that this phenomenon is not a consequence of reducing th e number of tokens per stream.