Memory for product sounds: the effect of sound and label type

The (mnemonic) interactions between auditory, visual, and the semantic systems have been investigated using structurally complex auditory stimuli (i.e., product sounds). Six types of product sounds (air, alarm, cyclic, impact, liquid, mechanical) that vary in spectral-temporal structure were presented in four label type conditions: self-generated text, text, image, and pictogram. A memory paradigm that incorporated free recall, recognition, and matching tasks was employed. The results for the sound type suggest that the amount of spectral-temporal structure in a sound can be indicative for memory performance. Findings related to label type suggest that 'self' creates a strong bias for the retrieval and the recognition of sounds that were self-labeled; the density and the complexity of the visual information (i.e., pictograms) hinders the memory performance ('visual' overshadowing effect); and image labeling has an additive effect on the recall and matching tasks (dual coding). Thus, the findings suggest that the memory performances for product sounds are task-dependent.     

The effect of visual context on the identification of ambiguous environmental sounds

The influence of the specificity of the visual context on the identification of environmental sounds (i.e., product sounds) was investigated. Two different visual context types (i.e., scene and object contexts)—which varied in the specificity of the semantic information—and a control condition (meaningless images) were employed. A contextual priming paradigm was used. Identification accuracy and response times were determined in two context conditions and one control condition. The results suggest that visual context has a positive effect on sound identification. In addition, two types of product sounds (location-specific and event-specific sounds) were observed which exhibited different sensitivities to scene and object contexts. Furthermore, the results suggest that conceptual interactions exist between an object and a context that do not share the same perceptual domain. Therefore, context should be regarded as a network of conceptually associated items in memory.     

The effects of aging on location-based and distance-based processes in memory for time

Retrieving when an event occurred may depend on an estimation of the age of the event (distance-based processes) or on strategic reconstruction processes based on contextual information associated with the event (location-based processes). Young and older participants performed a list discrimination task that has been designed to dissociate the contribution of both types of processes. An adapted Remember/Know/Guess procedure [Can. J. Exp. Psychol. 50 (1996) 114] was developed to evaluate the processes used by the participants to recognize the stimuli and retrieve their list of occurrence. The results showed that aging disrupts location-based processes more than distance-based processes. In addition, a limitation of speed of processing and working-memory capacities was the main predictor of age-related differences on location-based processes, whereas working-memory capacities mediated partly age differences on distance-based processes.     

Memories affect mood: evidence from covert experimental assignment to positive, neutral, and negative memory recall

Memory recall has been proposed as a common and effective mood regulation strategy. Although several studies have presented results suggesting that recalling valenced memories affects subsequent mood, their designs allow for alternative interpretations of the observed effects. Two such alternatives include the reverse effect (mood effects on memory due to non-experimental assignment to memory recall condition) and demand characteristics of the experiment. We used covert experimental assignment to memory condition, asking subjects (N=314; 56% female) to recall memories that were primarily positive, neutral, or negative. Results showed the expected effect on mood (p<.002), with reported mood worst in the negative memory condition, better in the neutral condition, and best in the positive condition. These results suggest that valenced memory recall does indeed exert an effect on mood, and may do so even without the individual's awareness.     

Does knowing speaker sex facilitate vowel recognition at short durations?

A man, woman or child saying the same vowel do so with very different voices. The auditory system solves the complex problem of extracting what the man, woman or child has said despite substantial differences in the acoustic properties of their voices. Much of the acoustic variation between the voices of men and woman is due to changes in the underlying anatomical mechanisms for producing speech. If the auditory system knew the sex of the speaker then it could potentially correct for speaker sex related acoustic variation thus facilitating vowel recognition. This study measured the minimum stimulus duration necessary to accurately discriminate whether a brief vowel segment was spoken by a man or woman, and the minimum stimulus duration necessary to accuately recognise what vowel was spoken. Results showed that reliable vowel recognition precedesreliable speaker sex discrimination, thus questioning the use of speaker sex information in compensating for speaker sex related acoustic variation in the voice. Furthermore, the pattern of performance across experiments where the fundamental frequency and formant frequency information of speaker's voices were systematically varied, was markedly different depending on whether the task was speaker-sex discrimination or vowel recognition. This argues for there being little relationship between perception of speaker sex (indexical information) and perception of what has been said (linguistic information) at short durations.     

Episodic accessibility and morphological processing: evidence from long-term auditory priming

Long-term priming studies of lexical processing have yielded conflicting claims as to whether abstract versus episodic representations are involved during word recognition. A critical piece of evidence that could separate the two accounts rests on the existence of full morphological priming, where morphologically related words yield the same amount of priming as repeated words. In this study, participants performed speeded lexical decision on lists of auditory words and non-words, which contained repeated, morphologically related, semantically related and phonologically related pairs of items. In order to minimize the involvement of episodic factors, we increased the prime-target interval and decreased their physical similarity by introducing a change in speaker’s voice. We show that under conditions that minimize access to episodic features, the magnitude of repetition priming decreased to attain that of morphological priming. Importantly, morphological and repetition priming for words were always observed in the absence of any semantic and phonological priming, suggesting that they cannot be reduced to formal or meaning overlap. Our results support the view that long-term priming taps both abstract lexical codes with a morphological format and episodic memory components. Further, they show that episodic influences on priming can be modulated by prime-target interval and physical similarity.     

Consistently modeling the same movement strategy is more important than model skill level in observational learning contexts

The experiment undertaken was designed to elucidate the impact of model skill level on observational learning processes. The task was bimanual circle tracing with a 90° relative phase lead of one hand over the other hand. Observer groups watched videos of either an instruction model, a discovery model, or a skilled model. The instruction and skilled model always performed the task with the same movement strategy, the right-arm traced clockwise and the left-arm counterclockwise around circle templates with the right-arm leading. The discovery model used several movement strategies (tracing-direction/hand-lead) during practice. Observation of the instruction and skilled model provided a significant benefit compared to the discovery model when performing the 90° relative phase pattern in a post-observation test. The observers of the discovery model had significant room for improvement and benefited from post-observation practice of the 90° pattern. The benefit of a model is found in the consistency with which that model uses the same movement strategy, and not within the skill level of the model. It is the consistency in strategy modeled that allows observers to develop an abstract perceptual representation of the task that can be implemented into a coordinated action. Theoretically, the results show that movement strategy information (relative motion direction, hand lead) and relative phase information can be detected through visual perception processes and be successfully mapped to outgoing motor commands within an observational learning context.     

The occurrence of the filled duration illusion: A comparison of the method of adjustment with the method of magnitude estimation

A time interval between the onset and the offset of a continuous sound (filled interval) is often perceived to be longer than a time interval between two successive brief sounds (empty interval) of the same physical duration. The present study examined whether and how this phenomenon, sometimes called the filled duration illusion (FDI), occurs for short time intervals (40–520 ms). The investigation was conducted with the method of adjustment (Experiment 1) and the method of magnitude estimation (Experiment 2). When the method of adjustment was used, the FDI did not appear for the majority of the participants, but it appeared clearly for some participants. In the latter case, the amount of the FDI increased as the interval duration lengthened. The FDI was more likely to occur with magnitude estimation than with the method of adjustment. The participants who showed clear FDI with one method did not necessarily show such clear FDI with the other method.     

Representing time in language and memory: The role of similarity structure

Every day we read about or watch events in the world and can easily understand or remember how long they last. What aspects of an event are retained in memory? And how do we extract temporal information from our memory representations? These issues are central to human cognition, as they underlie a fundamental aspect of our mental life, namely our representation of time. This paper reviews previous language studies and reports a visual learning study indicating that properties of the events encoded in memory shape the representation of their duration. The evidence indicates that for a given event, the extent to which its associated properties or sub-components differ from one another modulates our representation of its duration. These properties include the similarity between sub-events and the similarity between the situational contexts in which an event occurs. We suggest that the diversity of representations that we associate with events in memory plays an important role in remembering and estimating the duration of experienced or described events.     

Aging and self-reported internal and external memory strategy uses: The role of executive functioning

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of advanced age on self-reported internal and external memory strategy uses, and whether this effect can be predicted by executive functioning. A sample of 194 participants aged 21 to 80 divided into three age groups (21-40, 41-60, 61-80) completed the two strategy scales of the Metamemory in Adulthood (MIA) questionnaire, differentiating between internal and external everyday memory strategy uses, and three tests of executive functioning. The results showed that: (1) the use of external memory strategies increased with age, whereas use of internal memory strategy decreased; (2) executive functioning appeared to be related only to internal strategies, the participants who reported the greatest use of internal strategies having the highest executive level; and (3) executive functioning accounted for a sizeable proportion of the age-related variance in internal strategy use. These findings suggest that older adults preferentially use external memory strategies to cope with everyday memory impairment due to aging. They also support the view that the age-related decrease in the implementation of internal memory strategies can be explained by the executive hypothesis of cognitive aging. This result parallels those observed using objective laboratory memory strategy measures and then supports the validity of self-reported memory strategy questionnaire.     

Limitations of episodic memory for highly similar auditory stimuli

Two experiments investigated participants’ recognition memory for word content, while varying vocal characteristics, and for vocal characteristics alone. In Experiment 1, participants performed an auditory recognition task in which they identified whether a spoken word was “new”, “old” (repeated word, repeated voice), or “similar” (repeated word, new voice). Results showed that word recognition accuracy was lower for similar trials than old trials. In Experiment 2, participants performed an auditory recognition task in which they identified whether or not a phrase was spoken in an old or new voice, with repetitions occurring after a variable number of intervening stimuli. Results showed that recognition accuracy was lower when old voices spoke an alternate message than a repeated message and accuracy decreased as a function of number of intervening items. Overall, the results suggest that speech recognition is better for lexical content than vocal characteristics alone.     

Mental scanning of sonifications reveals flexible encoding of nonspeech sounds and a universal per-item scanning cost

A mental scanning paradigm was used to examine the representation of nonspeech sounds in working memory. Participants encoded sonifications – nonspeech auditory representations of quantitative data – as either verbal lists, visuospatial images, or auditory images. The number of tones and overall frequency changes in the sonifications were also manipulated to allow for different hypothesized patterns of reaction times across encoding strategies. Mental scanning times revealed different patterns of reaction times across encoding strategies, despite the fact that all internal representations were constructed from the same nonspeech sound stimuli. Scanning times for the verbal encoding strategy increased linearly as the number of items in the verbal representation increased. Scanning times for the visuospatial encoding strategy were generally slower and increased as the metric distance (derived metaphorically from frequency change) in the mental image increased. Scanning times for the auditory imagery strategy were faster and closest to the veridical durations of the original stimuli. Interestingly, the number of items traversed in scanning a representation significantly affected scanning times across all encoding strategies. Results suggested that nonspeech sounds can be flexibly represented, and that a universal per-item scanning cost persisted across encoding strategies. Implications for cognitive theory, the mental scanning paradigm, and practical applications are discussed.     

Processing emotions in sounds: cross-domain aftereffects of vocal utterances and musical sounds

Nonlinguistic signals in the voice and musical instruments play a critical role in communicating emotion. Although previous research suggests a common mechanism for emotion processing in music and speech, the precise relationship between the two domains is unclear due to the paucity of direct evidence. By applying the adaptation paradigm developed by Bestelmeyer, Rouger, DeBruine, and Belin [2010. Auditory adaptation in vocal affect perception. Cognition, 117(2), 217–223. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2010.08.008], this study shows cross-domain aftereffects from vocal to musical sounds. Participants heard an angry or fearful sound four times, followed by a test sound and judged whether the test sound was angry or fearful. Results show cross-domain aftereffects in one direction – vocal utterances to musical sounds, not vice-versa. This effect occurred primarily for angry vocal sounds. It is argued that there is a unidirectional relationship between vocal and musical sounds where emotion processing of vocal sounds encompasses musical sounds but not vice-versa.     

Learning foreign sounds in an alien world: videogame training improves non-native speech categorization

Although speech categories are defined by multiple acoustic dimensions, some are perceptually weighted more than others and there are residual effects of native-language weightings in non-native speech perception. Recent research on nonlinguistic sound category learning suggests that the distribution characteristics of experienced sounds influence perceptual cue weights: Increasing variability across a dimension leads listeners to rely upon it less in subsequent category learning (Holt & Lotto, 2006). The present experiment investigated the implications of this among native Japanese learning English /r/-/l/ categories. Training was accomplished using a videogame paradigm that emphasizes associations among sound categories, visual information, and players' responses to videogame characters rather than overt categorization or explicit feedback. Subjects who played the game for 2.5h across 5 days exhibited improvements in /r/-/l/ perception on par with 2-4 weeks of explicit categorization training in previous research and exhibited a shift toward more native-like perceptual cue weights.     

The role of working memory in achievement goal pursuit

The present research examined the role of working memory in the pursuit of qualitatively different achievement goals. Pursuit of a mastery-approach goal entails a focus on developing self-referential competence while a performance-approach goal entails a focus on demonstrating normative competence. Across two experiments it was found that, when working memory is loaded, individuals pursuing a mastery-approach goal experienced larger performance decrements than individuals pursuing a performance-approach goal or those in a no-goal control. It was also found that reliance upon working memory intensive strategies (explicit strategies) was more evident for those in a mastery-approach condition, whereas reliance upon less working memory intensive strategies (implicit strategies) was more evident for those in the performance-approach condition. Results suggest that a motivated focus on developing self-referential skill relies heavily on working memory, facilitated by the use of deliberative, ‘step-by-step’ strategies during goal pursuit. Conversely, a focus on demonstrating normative skill depends less on working memory, facilitated by the use of more heuristic ‘short-cut’ strategies during goal pursuit. These findings show, for the first time, that working memory plays an important, but selective, role in achievement goal pursuit.     

Speech perception in rats: use of duration and rise time cues in labeling of affricate/fricative sounds

The voiceless affricate/fricative contrast has played an important role in developing auditory theories of speech perception. This type of theory draws some of its support from experimental data on animals. However, nothing is known about differential responding of affricate/fricative continua by animals. In the current study, the ability of hooded rats to "label" an affricate/fricative continuum was tested. Transfer (without retraining) to analogous nonspeech continua was also tested. The nonspeech continua were chosen so that if transfer occurred, it would indicate whether the animals had learned to use rise time or duration cues to differentiate affricates from fricatives. The data from 9 of 10 rats indicated that rats can discriminate between these cues and do so in a similar manner to human subjects. The data from 9 of 10 rats also demonstrated that the rise time of the stimulus was the basis of the discrimination; the remaining rat appeared to use duration.     

Experience and information loss in auditory and visual memory

Recent studies show that recognition memory for sounds is inferior to memory for pictures. Four experiments were conducted to examine the nature of auditory and visual memory. Experiments 1–3 were conducted to evaluate the role of experience in auditory and visual memory. Participants received a study phase with pictures/sounds, followed by a recognition memory test. Participants then completed auditory training with each of the sounds, followed by a second memory test. Despite auditory training in Experiments 1 and 2, visual memory was superior to auditory memory. In Experiment 3, we found that it is possible to improve auditory memory, but only after 3 days of specific auditory training and 3 days of visual memory decay. We examined the time course of information loss in auditory and visual memory in Experiment 4 and found a trade-off between visual and auditory recognition memory: Visual memory appears to have a larger capacity, while auditory memory is more enduring. Our results indicate that visual and auditory memory are inherently different memory systems and that differences in visual and auditory recognition memory performance may be due to the different amounts of experience with visual and auditory information, as well as structurally different neural circuitry specialized for information retention.     

Congenital amusia: A short-term memory deficit for non-verbal,but not verbal sounds

Congenital amusia refers to a lifelong disorder of music processing and is linked to pitch-processing deficits. The present study investigated congenital amusics’ short-term memory for tones, musical timbres and words. Sequences of five events (tones, timbres or words) were presented in pairs and participants had to indicate whether the sequences were the same or different. The performance of congenital amusics confirmed a memory deficit for tone sequences, but showed normal performance for word sequences. For timbre sequences, amusics’ memory performance was impaired in comparison to matched controls. Overall timbre performance was found to be correlated with melodic contour processing (as assessed by the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia). The present findings show that amusics’ deficits extend to non-verbal sound material other than pitch, in this case timbre, while not affecting memory for verbal material. This is in line with previous suggestions about the domain-specificity of congenital amusia.     

Predicting lexical accent perception in native Japanese speakers: An investigation of acoustic pitch sensitivity and working memory

Spoken language perception may be constrained by a listener's cognitive resources, including verbal working memory (WM) capacity and basic auditory perception mechanisms. For Japanese listeners, it is unknown how, or even if, these resources are involved in the processing of pitch accent at the word level. The present study examined the extent to which native Japanese speakers could make correctness judgments on and categorize spoken Japanese words by pitch accent pattern, and how verbal WM capacity and acoustic pitch sensitivity related to perception ability. Results showed that Japanese listeners were highly accurate at judging pitch accent correctness (M = 93%), but that the more cognitively demanding accent categorization task yielded notably lower performance (M = 61%). Of chief interest was the finding that acoustic pitch sensitivity significantly predicted accuracy scores on both perception tasks, while verbal WM had a predictive role only for the categorization of a specific accent pattern. These results indicate first, that task demands greatly influence accuracy and second, that basic cognitive capacities continue to support perception of lexical prosody even in adult listeners.