Let us first find the total number of ways in which the articles can be given to the people.
The first article can be given to any of the 8 people. The second can be given to any of the remaining 7 people. The third one can be given to 6 and the fourth to 5 people.
So the total number of ways are 8 × 7 × 6 × 5 = 1680.
Now out of these 1680 ways there are some cases where the 4 articles can be given to 4 consecutive people. Now these 4 consecutive people out of total 8 can be selected in 5 ways i.e. (P,Q,R,S), (Q,R,S,T), (R,S,T,U), (S,T,U,V) and (T,U,V,W). So the total number of ways in which the articles can be distributed to 4 consecutive persons = 5 × 4! = 120.
Hence the required number of ways = 1680 – 120 = 1560.