Message Reception as a Function of the Time of Occurrence of Extraneous Messages
Robert W. Peters · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1955
The effect of extraneous messages upon the reception of messages was studied relative to the time of occurrence of the two messages and the content of the extraneous message. Criterion messages were multiple-choice intelligibility test word groupings or PB words. Six types of extraneous messages were presented with the multiple-choice words. Extraneous messages presented with PB words were other PB words. Extraneous messages either immediately preceded or followed the primary message. Individuals serving in panels participated as either experimental or control group listeners. The control group heard only primary messages; the experimental group, both primary and extraneous messages. Comparisons were made between reception values found for each group and among the values found for the experimental group relative to the type of extraneous messages. The results indicated that the presence of an extraneous message immediately preceding or following a primary message significantly interfered with reception. Extraneous messages following primary messages were more damaging to reception than were preceding messages. The amount of interference varied depending upon the type of extraneous message.