About
If you've got a story, picture, or link that's beyond belief, send it to tipline@haveigotoneforyou.com with your name and where you heard about it and we'll add it!
Accounts
Click here to check if anything new just came in.
October 13 2011
NCBI ROFL: Why overheard cell phone conversations are extra annoying.
Overheard cell-phone conversations: when less speech is more distracting.
“Why are people more irritated by nearby cell-phone conversations than by conversations between two people who are physically present? Overhearing someone on a cell phone means hearing only half of a conversation–a “halfalogue.” We show that merely overhearing a halfalogue results in decreased performance on cognitive tasks designed to reflect the attentional demands of daily activities. By contrast, overhearing both sides of a cell-phone conversation or a monologue does not result in decreased performance. This may be because the content of a halfalogue is less predictable than both sides of a conversation. In a second experiment, we controlled for differences in acoustic factors between these types of overheard speech, establishing that it is the unpredictable informational content of halfalogues that results in distraction. Thus, we provide a cognitive explanation for why overheard cell-phone conversations are especially irritating: Less-predictable speech results in more distraction for a listener engaged in other tasks.”
Photo: icanhascheezburger
Related content:
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: f u cn read dis it means ur gud @ sp.
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: OMG! ur cell phone is mkng u impotent.
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Garlic: a sensory pleasure or a social nuisance?
WTF is NCBI ROFL? Read our FAQ!
