Re: Informational Masking (Christian Kaernbach )

Subject: Re: Informational Masking
From:    Christian Kaernbach  <chris(at)PSYCHOLOGIE.UNI-LEIPZIG.DE>
Date:    Fri, 2 Mar 2001 08:16:12 +0100

Peter Lennox wrote:
> I've also noticed what a complex phenomenon this information-masking
> is, compared to signal-masking. If my wife speaks to me when I'm
> trying to fix this blessed computer, it can take me 15 minutes to
> respond! (if at all). I'm not just being facetious here; I seem to
> observe that it is possible to 'store' apparently (fairly)
> unprocessed 'sound chunks', and 're-listen' to them a short time
> later, and *only then* understand them.

I guess you are storing not unprocessed sound chunks but auditorily
well-processed items on a priority-based schedule. Proof: tell your wife
to intersperse once a week sentences like "I'm going to switch off the
main fuse, so all electric devices will go down" in the same voice as
she would say "I'm back in ten minutes but I just have to get this silk
scarf." She should say both types of sentences in self-chosen wordings,
and let action follow. I bet you will process the first type of sentence
at quite a different speed.

        ;-)  Christian Kaernbach