Listening Between and During Practised Auditory Distractions

Subjects were instructed to answer a rapid series of questions, and during series a buzzer was sometimes sounded. Some subjects were instructed to make a reaction to this buzzer; this produced an interference with speech task, both at instant of buzz and also between buzzes. latter interference was reduced by previous practice at buzzer reaction, but former was not. If buzzer was one of two possible signals for a two‐choice reaction, interference at moment of buzz was greater, suggesting that situation is most easily described in terms of information theory. But previous practice in this case causes subject to perform secondary task in a way which requires less information and so interferes less. effect of practice in’ automatizing’ a task is thus real, but has important limitations.