scholarly journals Auditory and visual short-term memory: influence of material type, contour, and musical expertise

Author(s):  
Francesca Talamini ◽  
Salomé Blain ◽  
Jérémie Ginzburg ◽  
Olivier Houix ◽  
Patrick Bouchet ◽  
...  

AbstractShort-term memory has mostly been investigated with verbal or visuospatial stimuli and less so with other categories of stimuli. Moreover, the influence of sensory modality has been explored almost solely in the verbal domain. The present study compared visual and auditory short-term memory for different types of materials, aiming to understand whether sensory modality and material type can influence short-term memory performance. Furthermore, we aimed to assess if music expertise can modulate memory performance, as previous research has reported better auditory memory (and to some extent, visual memory), and better auditory contour recognition for musicians than non-musicians. To do so, we adapted the same recognition paradigm (delayed-matching to sample) across different types of stimuli. In each trial, participants (musicians and non-musicians) were presented with two sequences of events, separated by a silent delay, and had to indicate whether the two sequences were identical or different. The performance was compared for auditory and visual materials belonging to three different categories: (1) verbal (i.e., syllables); (2) nonverbal (i.e., that could not be easily denominated) with contour (based on loudness or luminance variations); and (3) nonverbal without contour (pink noise sequences or kanji letters sequences). Contour and no-contour conditions referred to whether the sequence can entail (or not) a contour (i.e., a pattern of up and down changes) based on non-pitch features. Results revealed a selective advantage of musicians for auditory no-contour stimuli and for contour stimuli (both visual and auditory), suggesting that musical expertise is associated with specific short-term memory advantages in domains close to the trained domain, also extending cross-modally when stimuli have contour information. Moreover, our results suggest a role of encoding strategies (i.e., how the material is represented mentally during the task) for short-term-memory performance.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Talamini ◽  
Salomé Blain ◽  
Jérémie Ginzburg ◽  
Olivier Houix ◽  
Patrick Bouchet ◽  
...  

Draft version 28.03.2020. This paper has not been peer reviewed. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. Short-term memory has mostly been investigated with verbal or visuospatial stimuli and less so with other categories of stimuli. Moreover, the influence of sensory modality has been explored almost solely in the verbal domain. The present study used the same experimental paradigm to investigate auditory and visual short-term memory for different types of stimuli. In each trial, participants were presented with two sequences of events, separated by a silent delay, and had to indicate whether the two sequences were identical or different. Performance in this recognition (delayed-matching-to-sample) paradigm was compared for materials that were either verbal (i.e., chained syllables without meaning) or nonverbal (i.e., not easily described by verbal labels). For the latter ones, the event sequence could either entail a contour, which is a pattern of up and down changes (based on non-pitch features), or not. All materials were implemented in both auditory and visual modalities. As previous research has reported better auditory memory (and to some extent, visual memory), and better auditory contour recognition for musicians than non-musicians, the recognition tasks were performed by a group of musicians and a group of non-musicians. Results revealed a selective advantage of musicians for the auditory no-contour stimuli and for the contour stimuli (both visual and auditory), suggesting that musical expertise is associated with specific short-term memory advantages in domains close to the trained domain, even extending cross-modally. These findings offer new insights into the role of encoding strategies and their effect on short-term memory performance across modalities.


1972 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 414-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neal E. A. Kroll

Trigrams were presented visually or auditorily and followed by a 12 s retention interval filled with shadowing numbers or letters. Auditory memory letters followed by letter shadowing were recalled less than auditory memory letters followed by number shadowing or visual memory letters followed by either type of shadowing. The latter three conditions did not differ among themselves. An analysis of the recall intrusions suggested that forgetting of auditory memory letters followed by letter shadowing was caused mainly by a confusion between covert rehearsals and shadowing activity, while forgetting in the other three conditions was caused primarily by proactive interference from earlier memory trials.


Author(s):  
Justyna Olszewska ◽  
Amy Hodel ◽  
Andrzej Falkowski ◽  
Bernadette Woldt ◽  
Hanna Bednarek ◽  
...  

Abstract. The current study assessed memory performance for perceptually similar environmental sounds and speech-based material after short and long delays. In two studies, we demonstrated a similar pattern of memory performance for sounds and words in short-term memory, yet in long-term memory, the performance patterns differed. Experiment 1 examined the effects of two different types of sounds: meaningful (MFUL) and meaningless (MLESS), whereas Experiment 2 assessed memory performance for words and nonwords. We utilized a modified version of the classical Deese–Roediger–McDermott ( Deese, 1959 ; Roediger & McDermott, 1995 ) procedure and adjusted it to test the effects of acoustic similarities between auditorily presented stimuli. Our findings revealed no difference in memory performance between MFUL and MLESS sounds, and between words and nonwords after short delays. However, following long delays, greater reliance on meaning was noticed for MFUL sounds than MLESS sounds, while performance for linguistic material did not differ between words and nonwords. Importantly, participants' memory performance for words and nonwords was accompanied by a more lenient response strategy. The results are discussed in terms of perceptual and semantic similarities between MLESS and MFUL sounds, as well as between words and nonwords.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 228-230
Author(s):  
Syamala E ◽  
Rama Kranthi T ◽  
Amrutha Kumari K ◽  
Simmi Soni ◽  
Mohamad Nazeer

Background: Short-term memory allows recall for a period of several seconds to a minute without rehearsal. Various studies have shown a positive correlation between physical activity and cognition. The present study is undertaken to find out if physical training has any extra benefit on children’s auditory and visual short term memory in rural area whose physical activity is greater than urban children and adults. Materials and methods: Total 60 children participated in the study. 30 children were trained regularly in sports both in the morning and evening at least for 2 hours a day for one year in the age group of 8-16 and 30 untrained children age, gender and BSA matched participated in the study. Auditory memory was tested using numerical and word test. Visual memory was tested using numerical, word and objective tests. Results and discussion: Statistically significant results were observed in auditory word test, visual numerical, visual word and visual objective tests but auditory numerical test was insignificant. Conclusions: Short term memory improves linearly with physical activity. This could be due to increase in supply of oxygen and nutrients to brain.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Alexandra Fiorta ◽  
Patricia Talarczyk

In the field of neuroscience, cognitive memory is at the center of biomedical research. Prior works in cognitive memory all suggest and show that as people age their short term memory slows down and becomes less effective from an accuracy standpoint. This especially becomes apparent in age related memory impairments such as Alzheimer’s. Using musical stimulation this study was focused on finding out if music has an effect on a musician’s short term memory speed and overall accuracy in both auditory and visual memory. Visual and auditory memory are the primary ways in which music is memorized. Along with visual memory motor memory is also tested in musicians as they use muscles when playing an instrument (Chua,  2014). Thus, these two were combined with the aim of finding out if music has an effect on the entire short term memory system. The study focused on all ages ranging from fourteen to the age bracket of sixty and over. Each participant was given the same conditions under which the study was conducted. Using a T-chart analysis the data showed that overall the speed of memory is enhanced with musical stimulation; however, accuracy was statistically insignificant. To avoid the distraction of future participants they should be evaluated one at a time.Key Words: cognitive memory, auditory, visual, musicians, motor memory


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 1206
Author(s):  
Erika Almadori ◽  
Serena Mastroberardino ◽  
Fabiano Botta ◽  
Riccardo Brunetti ◽  
Juan Lupiáñez ◽  
...  

Object sounds can enhance the attentional selection and perceptual processing of semantically-related visual stimuli. However, it is currently unknown whether crossmodal semantic congruence also affects the post-perceptual stages of information processing, such as short-term memory (STM), and whether this effect is modulated by the object consistency with the background visual scene. In two experiments, participants viewed everyday visual scenes for 500 ms while listening to an object sound, which could either be semantically related to the object that served as the STM target at retrieval or not. This defined crossmodal semantically cued vs. uncued targets. The target was either in- or out-of-context with respect to the background visual scene. After a maintenance period of 2000 ms, the target was presented in isolation against a neutral background, in either the same or different spatial position as in the original scene. The participants judged the same vs. different position of the object and then provided a confidence judgment concerning the certainty of their response. The results revealed greater accuracy when judging the spatial position of targets paired with a semantically congruent object sound at encoding. This crossmodal facilitatory effect was modulated by whether the target object was in- or out-of-context with respect to the background scene, with out-of-context targets reducing the facilitatory effect of object sounds. Overall, these findings suggest that the presence of the object sound at encoding facilitated the selection and processing of the semantically related visual stimuli, but this effect depends on the semantic configuration of the visual scene.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Robitaille ◽  
Stephen Emrich

In the past two decades, significant advances have been made to understand the psychophysical properties of visual short-term memory (VSTM). Most studies, however, make inferences based on memory for simple surface features of 2D shapes. Here, we examined the role of object complexity and dimensionality on the psychophysical properties of VSTM by comparing orientation memory for 2D lines and complex 3D objects in a delayed-response continuous report task, where memory load (Experiment 1) or axis of rotation (Experiment 2) was manipulated. In both experiments, our results demonstrate an overall cost of complexity that affected participants raw errors as well as their guess rate and response precision derived from mixture modelling. We also demonstrate that participants’ memory performance is correlated between stimulus types and that memory performance for both 2D and 3D shapes is better fit to the variable precision model of VSTM than to tested competing models. Interestingly, the ability to report complex objects is not consistent across axes of rotation. These results indicate that, despite the fact that VSTM shares similar properties for 2D and 3D shapes, VSTM is far from being a unitary process and is affected by stimulus properties such as complexity and dimensionality.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ezequiel Martin Durand López

This study examines whether different types of bilingualism modulate memory capacity differently. More specifically, the study assesses the effects of age of acquisition, number of languages acquired and proficiency in the L2 on phonological short-term memory, visuospatial memory and semantic memory.DesignMemory capacity was measured by means of three tasks: digit span task (phonological short-term memory), Corsi block task (visuospatial memory) and word span task (semantic memory). Participants were divided into five groups based on the number of languages acquired, age of acquisition and proficiency: monolinguals, intermediate L2 learners, advanced L2 learners, simultaneous bilinguals and multilinguals.Data and analysisAnalyses of variance were used to analyze participants’ scores for each of the memory tasks.Findings and conclusionsFor the word span task, no significant differences were found among the groups, which supports the notion that semantic memory is language independent. Furthermore, intermediate and advanced L2 learners and multilinguals presented significantly higher phonological short-term memory spans compared to simultaneous bilinguals. Finally, intermediate L2 learners and multilinguals significantly outperformed monolinguals on visuospatial memory spans. Results suggest that L2 acquisition might strengthen both visuospatial and phonological short-term memory, which in turn tend to improve as L2 proficiency increases.OriginalityWhile previous studies have provided evidence of a bilingual advantage in memory capacity, these studies have generally grouped different types of bilinguals together (e.g., L2 leaners and heritage speakers). This study takes a step forward by examining differences on memory capacity across different types of bilinguals and in comparison to their monolingual peers in order to better understand the cognitive effects of bilingualism.Significance and implicationsWhen considering age of acquisition, number of languages acquired and proficiency as grouping factors, different effects of bilingualism on memory capacity can be observed. Future studies on this matter should include bilingual participants that are comparable with regard to the aforementioned variables.


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