Psychophysiological Markers of Auditory Distraction: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Short-term memory can be disrupted by task-irrelevant sound. Auditory distraction has been globally studied under the lens of two main phenomena: the deviation effect and the changing-state effect. Yet, it remains unclear whether they rely on common cerebral mechanisms and, concomitantly, what psychophysiological responses they can trigger. This scoping review provides a state of knowledge regarding psychophysiological indices of auditory distraction. Records published between 2001 and 2021 on the deviation effect and the changing-state effect with psychophysiological measures were extracted from PubMed, ERIC, PsycNet, Web of Science, and ScienceDirect. Records investigating task-relevant sounds, as well as those that failed to observe performance disruption, or to include a control condition or a concurrent cognitive task, were excluded from the review. The Revised Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomized trials was used for bias evaluation. Fifteen records were reviewed, mainly characterized by randomization, measurement and selection of results biases. Some markers were specific to the distraction type, but nonspecific responses were also found. Overall, we outline the main markers used to index auditory distraction, present their meaning for understanding underpinning mechanisms, and discuss implications and knowledge gaps that need to be filled to fully exploit psychophysiology for auditory distraction research.