No evidence for a vibrotactile changing-state effect in serial recall: a multi-experimental replication attempt

One way to develop theories of forgetting in short-term memory is to introduce novel sources of distraction. A recent study reported a vibrotactile changing-state effect, suggesting that a sequence of irrelevant vibrations can disrupt visual-verbal serial recall if it contains variation. The present study aimed to replicate and extend this finding. But Experiment 1 found no evidence of a vibrotactile changing-state effect in visual-verbal serial recall. The effect was also absent in a direct replication of the original report (Experiment 4) and with a visual-spatial serial recall task (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 implemented further variation in vibrotactile properties, varying the timing, strength and spatial location of vibrations, yet produced no disruption. A Bayesian random-effects meta-analysis across all available experiments further supported the null hypothesis. These results suggest that the previously reported effect may reflect a false positive, and contribute to theory refinement by identifying potential boundary conditions for vibrotactile distraction.