P: Spot channels visibility is turned on automatically when selecting a layer mask

Say I have a RGB/8bit photoshop file, with one or more spot channels in it:

1. I make sure the visibility of those spot channel(s) is currently OFF ( by togling off each spot channels' eye icon ), and that only the RGB channels are currently selected and visible.
2. I then create a new layer, and add a layer mask to it.
3. I then select the new layer's RGB channel ( result: the RGB channel and its R, G, and B component channels are all selected and visible ) 
4. If I now select the new layer's 'layer mask', again, all the spot channels are made visible, AUTOMATICALLY.

Why is this happening?  The visibility of the spot channels was previously off; why does selecting a layer mask ( any layer mask of any layer, as a matter of fact ) makes all the spot channels visible?  This is really distracting and I can't think of a reason for this behavior.  I assume this is a bug.

Note: changing the solidity percentage of the spot channels to 0% doesn't prevent the spot channels' color from being overlaid, however faintly, which is why their visibility being toggled on automatically is a visual + workflow problem.