Developmental increase in the duration of memory for tone pitch.

Abstract

This research examined developmental change in the duration of memory for tome pitch. In Experiment 1, the persistence of memory for pitch was examined with a 2-tone comparison task in children 6-7 and 10-12 years old and in adults. Because pitch perception differences could contaminate the measure of memory, the frequency difference between tones was adjusted for each subject until a criterion level of performance was reached. In a subsequent test phase, the resulting frequency difference was maintained but the time between tones was varied. Performance deteriorated across the intertone interval more quickly in younger than in older subjects. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the developmental difference in pitch memory persistence is unlikely to be based on the development of strategic processing