Primacy, recency, and suffix effects in auditory short-term memory for pure tones: evidence from a probe recognition paradigm.

The present study was designed to explore serial position and suffix effects in the short-term retention of nonverbal sounds. In contrast with previous studies of these effects, a probe recognition paradigm was used to minimize the possibility that participants would use a verbal labelling strategy. On each trial, participants heard a memory set consisting of three pure tones, followed five seconds later by a probe tone. Participants were required to indicate whether or not the probe tone had been a member of the memory set. On most trials, a suffix sound was presented 1 second following the third sound in the memory set. Results revealed that tones presented in the first and last positions of the memory set were recognized more accurately than were tones presented in the middle position. Furthermore, recognition of sounds presented in the last position was compromised when the memory set was followed by a postlist suffix of similar pitch, spectral composition, and spatial location.