The influence of cognitive load combined with active responses on auditory susceptibility

Abstract

Summary thesis This research investigated the effect of cognitive load on auditory susceptibility and whether actively responding to auditory signals further affects this susceptibility. Previous research has shown that humans are less susceptible to auditory signals during cognitively demanding tasks (e.g. while driving). Requiring an active response to auditory stimuli can partially overcome this and increase susceptibility. However, tasks in these previous studies required visual or manual input. It is unknown whether having an active response requirement can also improve susceptibility during a cognitively demanding task without visual or manual input. Therefore, current research focusses on solely cognitive load, using an auditory verb generation task. In addition, it explores the effect of the active responses under conditions of increased cognitive load, by instructing half of the participants to give a response after hearing deviant signals. Susceptibility was measured by recording the frontal P3 response, using a three-stimulus oddball paradigm. Results show that the frontal P3 (and therefore auditory susceptibility) is reduced during cognitive load conditions. There’s insufficient evidence to conclude whether response requirement can overcome this reduction. In conclusion, these results suggest auditory susceptibility can diminish due to solely cognitive load. Further research is required to obtain sufficient evidence regarding the potential effect of active responses.