Domain-Generality of Timing-Based Serial Order Processes in Short-Term Memory: New Insights from Musical and Verbal Domains

Abstract

Several models in the verbal domain of short-term memory (STM) consider a dissociation between item and order processing. This view is supported by data demonstrating that different types of time-based interference have a greater effect on memory for the order of to-be-remembered items than on memory for the items themselves. The present study investigated the domain-generality of the item versus serial order dissociation by comparing the differential effects of time-based interfering tasks, such as rhythmic interference and articulatory suppression, on item and order processing in verbal and musical STM domains. In Experiment 1, participants had to maintain sequences of verbal or musical information in STM, followed by a probe sequence, this under different conditions of interference (no-interference, rhythmic interference, articulatory suppression). They were required to decide whether all items of the probe list matched those of the memory list (item condition) or whether the order of the items in the probe sequence matched the order in the memory list (order condition). In Experiment 2, participants performed a serial order probe recognition task for verbal and musical sequences ensuring sequential maintenance processes, under no-interference or rhythmic interference conditions. For Experiment 1, serial order recognition was not significantly more impacted by interfering tasks than was item recognition, this for both verbal and musical domains. For Experiment 2, we observed selective interference of the rhythmic interference condition on both musical and verbal order STM tasks. Overall, the results suggest a similar and selective sensitivity to time-based interference for serial order STM in verbal and musical domains, but only when the STM tasks ensure sequential maintenance processes.

A comparison of serial order short-term memory effects across verbal and musical domains

“…The absence in the musical task of a primacy effect for List Length 5, and the relatively weaker primacy effect for List Length 6 as well as the weaker recency effects for List Lengths 5 and 6, deserves some more consideration. A possible explanation for these relatively flat serial position curves is that participants may have relied on configurational melodic processing instead of strict serial processing of the memory items (e.g., contour information reflects the overall pattern of up and down tone transitions in the sequence, and can be represented in a gestalt-like manner; see Dowling, 1991;Gorin et al, 2016). In the musical literature, it is known that contour information plays an important role in short-term recognition of melodic excerpts (Dowling, 1978;Dowling & Tillmann, 2014).…”

“…Participants were administered tone lists of increasing length (from three to six items) with four different trials per length condition. The administration of shorter sequences for the musical STM task, as compared to the verbal serial order reconstruction task, was motivated by the fact that STM capacities are overall lower for musical than for verbal stimuli, and this particularly true in nonmusician participants (Gorin, Kowialiewski, & Majerus, 2016;Schendel & Palmer, 2007;Schulze, Mueller, & Koelsch, 2011;Williamson, Mitchell, Hitch, & Baddeley, 2010). In order to ensure the familiarization with task requirements, participants were provided with three practice trials before starting the task.…”

Temporal grouping effects in musical short-term memory

“…Williamson, Baddeley, and Hitch (2010) proposed that musical and verbal STM systems involve different domainspecific representational stores (see also Deutsch, 1970; Gorin & Majerus, submitted) while potentially sharing similar sequential refreshing mechanisms. The involvement of similar sequential mechanisms in verbal and musical STM has received further evidence in a recent study by Gorin, Kowialiewski, and Majerus (2016) showing that in verbal and musical STM tasks the maintenance of serial order information, but not item information, is similarly impacted by a temporally organised interfering task. These results were interpreted as reflecting the involvement of a similar timing-based contextual signal to represent order information in both domains.…”

“…By conducting the same study in musical experts, results may be valid only for this population characterised by specialised and overlearned skills for processing and maintaining musical stimuli Schulze, Zysset, Mueller, Friederici, & Koelsch, 2011). We therefore conducted a set of two experiments where groups of participants with no advanced musical expertise completed STM tasks requiring the maintenance of serial order information under conditions of temporal grouping or no grouping and by adapting a task that has been recently developed to study serial order STM in non-musician participants (Gorin et al, 2016). …”

“…At the same time, temporal grouping effects reported for verbal and visuo-spatial stimuli stem from experiments relying on a serial recall procedure, as these recall procedures are highly informative about the manner participants organise information during recall and allow for an analysis of transposition errors. For this reason, we used a mixed recall-recognition procedure, by taking advantage of a paradigm recently developed by Gorin et al (2016). This paradigm requires participants to covertly recall the sequence of a previously presented melody, like in serial recall, and to make a serial order judgment about an isolated probe tone presented at a given serial position, like in recognition paradigms.…”