When distraction benefits memory through semantic similarity

•Semantically related auditory distraction usually impairs memory performance.•We show that semantic distracters convey category information.•This information can disambiguate category membership of study words.•Semantic auditory distraction is then reversed in a category-cued recall test.•Interaction-by-process should describe negative and positive effects of distraction.

The processing of the relation between targets and distracters which underpins the impairment in memory for visually presented words when accompanied by semantically related auditory distracters-the between-sequence semantic similarity effect-might also disambiguate category membership of to-be-remembered words, bringing about improved memory for these words at recall. In this series of experiments the usual impairment of the between-sequence semantic similarity effect is reversed: we show that related distracters can improve memory performance when multiple-category lists are studied and a category-cued recall test is used at retrieval. The results indicate not only that irrelevant speech distracters are routinely processed for meaning, but also that semantic information gleaned from this stream is retained until recall of the memoranda is cued. The data are consistent with a revised interaction-by-process framework.