The effect of multisensory distraction on working memory: A role for task relevance? [RR stage 1 accepted manuscript]

There is growing recognition that working memory and selective attention are highly related. However, a key function of selective attention – ignoring distractors – is much less understood in the domain of working memory. In the attention domain, it is now clear that distractors’ task relevance and stimulation of multiple senses at the same time (i.e., being multisensory), affect how much such information can distract from the main task, and that load modulates these effects. Here, we examine the effects of the task relevance and multisensory nature of distractors on working memory performance under high and low memory load, with the aim to clarify whether distracting information similarly affects selective attention performance and working memory performance. We propose a multi-experiment research plan involving up to three consecutive experiments, based on an initial online study (Experiment 0) with fully task-irrelevant distractors. There, we found conclusive evidence against a difference in how unisensory and multisensory distractors affected working memory performance. The next study (Experiment 1) will be an in-person replication of Experiment 0. Next, four scenarios are possible as a function of 1) whether there is a difference between how unisensory and multisensory distractors affect working memory performance, and 2) whether this effect is modulated by memory load. Each scenario prescribes a different set of follow-up experiments, which are discussed in the manuscript. Taken together, these experiments constitute a novel, and detailed investigation of the impact of distracting information on working memory performance.