Alexander Strukelj

The impact of sound presentations on executive control: Evidence from eye movements

To examine the influence on performance of sound presentation considered more or less disturbing, distracting, and intrusive, an antisaccade task was used to assess executive control over reflexive eye movements. By examining the latency and proportion of correct eye movements in eight sound presentations for 32 participants (15 female), the effect of disturbance from sound was measured. The only effect found for latency was a significant increase during the Mozart violin concerto, suggesting an unconscious speed–accuracy tradeoff. Participants inhibited reflexive eye movements in favour of correct responses, which were marginally better than the silent control condition. The mean number of correctly launched saccades was significantly lower during three sound presentations which were all social in nature, namely playing children, crying baby, and babble noise. These were also classified as highly disturbing by participants. This suggests that certain sounds can have a large effect on executive control. Finally, the sound presentation with children playing affected females significantly more negatively than males, as seen in lower mean numbers of correctly launched saccades.