Incidental listening may improve statistical change detection over attention

Evidence

Further studies are required to address variations of the present paradigm, such as reductions in probability and continuous stimulus presentation. Attention was not controlled for in the present setting, although subjects were instructed to attend to the stimulus. Some subjects reported improved detection of change, when not attending to the stimulus, suggesting that a dual-task paradigm would be interesting where attention can be assessed and controlled. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3285

Categorization

• QUESTION: The subjective report that ignoring the stimulus improves detection is intriguing and worth chasing with a dual-task design.
• SEED: A possible essay angle on whether deliberate attention helps or hinders perceptual statistical learning.