Perceptual-motor determinants of auditory-verbal serial short-term memory

Publication date: October 2016 Source:Journal of Memory and Language, Volume 90 Author(s): Robert W. Hughes, Cindy Chamberland, Sébastien Tremblay, Dylan M. Jones The role of the compatibility between obligatory perceptual organization and the active assembly of a motor-plan in auditory-verbal serial recall was examined. The classic finding that serial recall is poorer with ear-alternating items was shown to be related to spatial-source localization, thereby confirming a basic tenet of the perceptual-motor account and disconfirming an early account characterizing the two ears as separate input-channels (Experiment 1). Promoting the streaming-by-location of ear-alternating items—and therefore the incompatibility between perceived and actual order—augmented the ear-alternation effect (Experiment 2) whereas demoting streaming-by-location by reducing the regularity of the alternation attenuated it (Experiment 3). Finally, increasing the perceptual variability of an ear-alternating list while demoting the likelihood of streaming-by-location—by adding uncorrelated voice changes—also reduced the ear-alternation effect as did articulatory suppression for that part of the list (pre-recency) associated with motor-planning (Experiment 4). The results are incompatible with theories in which perceptual variability impairs serial recall due to a deficit in encoding items into a limited-capacity short-term memory space and instead point to a central role for perceptual ...
Source: Journal of Memory and Language - Category: Speech Therapy Source Type: research