What is the irrelevant speech effect?

• A. Background irrelevant speech disrupts verbal rehearsal and reduces recall.
• B. Silence has no impact on memory.
• C. Meaningful speech improves recall.
• D. It only affects long-term memory.

Answer: (A)

The irrelevant speech effect shows how unattended background speech interferes with verbal rehearsal in the phonological loop of working memory. When you’re trying to hold a list of verbal items in mind, you subvocally rehearse them to keep them active. Background speech, even if you’re not paying attention to it, competes with that rehearsal and makes it harder to maintain the sequence, so recall drops. This effect is most evident for tasks that rely on verbal material and serial recall, and it’s a short-term/working-memory phenomenon rather than a change in long-term memory. Silence doesn’t cause this interference, and the core idea is about disruption of verbal rehearsal, not improvement from meaningful speech or effects on long-term memory.