Intentional encoding does not alter the trade-off between speech-in-noise perception and memory

Degraded speech increases listening effort at the expense of memory encoding, but the flexibility of this resource trade-off under varying motivational conditions remains poorly understood. The present study investigated how encoding intention influences cognitive resource allocation during a speech-in-noise task....

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No actionable change — this is a controlled lab study confirming that motivational effort alone cannot overcome the cognitive resource trade-off caused by degraded speech; it does not yet suggest a clinical intervention.

Understanding why noisy environments hurt both speech comprehension and memory simultaneously is fundamental to designing better hearing-aid signal processing and aural rehabilitation strategies.

1. 01Intentional encoding instructions did not reduce the trade-off between speech-in-noise perception and memory.
2. 02Motivational conditions failed to free up cognitive resources lost to degraded-speech processing.
3. 03Findings replicate and extend the effortful listening framework in a controlled experimental design.
4. 04Results suggest the resource trade-off is automatic/involuntary rather than modulated by intent.
5. 05Published in Memory & Cognition (DOI: 10.3758/s13421-026-01940-z).

PMID

42665732

DOI

10.3758/s13421-026-01940-z.

Journal

Memory & Cognition

Publication type

research_article

Evidence level

2b

Population

Participants completing speech-in-noise and memory tasks under varied motivational/encoding conditions

Intervention

Intentional encoding instructions during speech-in-noise tasks

Comparator

Incidental encoding (control) condition