Perceptual organization and precategorical acoustic storage.

Abstract

Current views of precategorical acoustic storage (PAS) have been largely based on differences in the level of recall of terminal list items as a function of input modality and on experiments in which various types of suffixes are added to unstructured auditory lists. Experiments with grouped lists reveal that PAS can make a far more extensive contribution to serial recall. A series of four experiments investigated grouping effects in relation to existing accounts of consolidation, attentional selection, and auditory masking in PAS. Grouping effects obtained with very brief intralist pauses were inconsistent with the consolidation and masking hypotheses. Contrary to the attentional hypothesis, nontemporal grouping by voice or by spatial location was found to be as effective as grouping by extended pauses. When nontemporal methods of grouping were combined with intralist pauses, the two sets of grouping cues were no better than one, suggesting that list segmentation by pauses and by item attributes must be explained in terms of a single process. These results are discussed in the context of previous research that implies the existence of an auditory store with a capacity greater than previously attributed to PAS. Existing data on modality and suffix effects are seen as specific instances of a more general relation between the structure of spoken sequences and their subsequent recall.

Exploring the suffix effect in serial visuospatial short-term memory

“…According to the masking account, serial recall performance for the last item of a TBR sequence is overwritten by the presentation of the suffix (e.g., Nairne, 1990). From the grouping point of view, the suffix becomes part of the same cohort as the TBR items; that is, it is grouped with the TBR items (Frankish, 1989;Nicholls & Jones, 2002). The data of Nicholls and Jones clearly favor the grouping account, because they demonstrate that the suffix effect can be moderated by the extent to which the suffix can be segregated from the to-be-remembered items on the basis of auditory streaming (Bregman, 1990).…”

A feature model of immediate memory

“…Typically, serial recall of auditory and visual lists leads to declining performance over serial position, but, for the last few serial positions, there is a relative auditory advantage (Conrad & Hull, 1968;Corballis, 1966;Craik, 1969;Murdock & Walker, 1969;Murray, 1966). The stimulus suffix effect is a related phenomenon, which is observed when an extra item, usually a word presented aloud, eliminates the modality effect by reducing the recency advantage that is found for auditory lists (Dallett, 1965).The presentation of list information aloud also interacts significantly with the organization of presentation: If a nine-item list is presented with the items in groups of three, separated by short pauses, auditory presentation leads to large grouping advantages, relative to visual presentation, and, within each group, there is a recency advantage for the last serial position (Frankish, 1985(Frankish, , 1989Ryan, 1969). In addition, under auditory presentation, increasing the phonological similarity among the items in a list produces performance decrements in recall, even in the presence of continued articulatory suppression (repeating a constant throughout list presentation); with visual presentation, the suppressionof articulationhas been shown to eliminate phonologically based differences in recall (Estes, 1973;Levy, 1971; Peterson & Johnson, 1971).…”

In search of a strong visual recency effect

“…This modality effect is typically restricted to items at or near the end of a list: Relative to recall of earlier items, there is a large increase in recall for the most recently presented items of auditory lists, but only a small increase in recall for visual lists. Although there has been no lack of theoretical speculation about the modality effect (e.g., Frankish, 1989;Frick, 1988;Glenberg & Swanson, 1986;Nairne, 1988Nairne, , 1990Penney, 1989), Crowder's (1986) characterization of existing research remains apt: "The classical auditory-visual modality effect is large and reliable, but still poorly understood" (p. 268).…”