Are sound abatement measures necessary in the cytology reading room? A study of auditory distraction

View/ open
Author
Evered, Andrew
Watt, Andrew
Perham, Nick
Date
2017-09-07Acceptance date
2017-06-27
Type
Article
Publisher
Wiley
ISSN
0956-5507
1365-2303 (ESSN)
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Objective
Listening to music and other auditory material during microscopy work is common practice among cytologists. While many cytologists would claim several benefits of such activity, research in other fields suggests that it might adversely affect diagnostic performance. Using a cross-modal distraction paradigm, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of auditory stimulation on the visual interpretation of cell images.
Methods
Following initial training, 34 participants undertook cell interpretation tests under four auditory conditions (liked music, disliked music, speech and silence) in a counterbalanced repeated-measures study. Error rate, area under the ROC curve, criterion and response time were measured for each condition.
Results
There was no significant effect of auditory stimulation on the accuracy or speed with which cell images were interpreted, mirroring the results of a previous visual distraction study.
Conclusions
To the extent that the experiment reflects clinical practice, listening to music or other forms of auditory material whilst undertaking microscopy duties is an unlikely source of distraction in the cytopathology reading room. From a cognitive perspective the results are consistent with the notion that high focal-task engagement may have blocked any attentional capture the sound may otherwise have produced.
Journal/conference proceeding
Cytopathology;
Citation
Evered A, Watt, W and Perham, N. (2017) 'Auditory distraction in the cytology reading room? A study of auditory distraction', Cytopathology
Description
This article was published in Cytopathology on 07 September 2017 (online), available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cyt.12457
Sponsorship
Cardiff Metropolitan University (Grant ID: Cardiff Metropolian (Internal))
Collections
- Import [796]
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, subject and abstract.
-
Does Steady-State Sound Impair Mental Arithmetic Performance?
Clarkson, Martin (Cardiff Metropolitan University, 2013)Recent findings in semantic auditory distraction has shown that irrelevant content that is semantically similar causes task impairment due to the mechanism of rehearsal being disrupted (Marsh, Hughes & Jones, 2008; 2009). ... -
Post-Categorical Auditory Distraction in Serial Short-Term Memory: Insights from Increased Task-Load and Task-Type
Marsh, John E; Yang, Jingqi; Qualter, Pamela; Richardson, Cassandra; Perham, Nick; Vachon, Franҫois (American Psychological Association, 2018-02-01)Task-irrelevant speech impairs short-term serial recall appreciably. On the interference-by-process account, the processing of physical (i.e., pre-categorical) changes in speech yields order cues that conflict with the ... -
The effects of mood state and emotional content on the deviant sound effect
Russell, Liberty Valentine (Cardiff Metropolitan University, 2017-06-01)Research surrounding auditory distraction has led to reports of a new effect; the effect a deviant word has in an otherwise repeated sequence (Escera, Alho, Winkler & Naatanen, 1998). Past studies have looked into this ...