Irrelevant Speech Effect

Irrelevant Speech Effect

Reviewed by Faisal Zaidi

The disruption of memory and arithmetic tasks by background speech.

What it is

In office-task experiments, speech disrupted prose memory and mental arithmetic, while noise without speech disrupted only the arithmetic. It is drawn from work by Simon Banbury and Dianne Berry (1998).

In effect

In the article on why we work better in cafés, nearby conversation is the part of café sound that works against careful work.

What it does not say

The experiments used office-style tasks of prose memory and mental arithmetic. They do not say that speech harms every kind of work, and noise without speech disrupted only the arithmetic task.

Sources

  1. Banbury, S. P., & Berry, D. C. (1998). Disruption of office-related tasks by speech and office noise. British Journal of Psychology, 89(3), 499-517.