Abstract
This study explored the validity of an integrative framework for verbal and musical short-term memory (STM). Following this framework, access to domain-specific long-term knowledge bases supports the processing of musical and verbal item information in STM, while domain-general ordering processes support the representation of serial order information in the two domains. We exposed participants to verbal and musical STM tasks assessing either item information, order information, or both item and order information. Using an interindividual differences approach, we observed that performance in item-based STM tasks was not strongly associated between musical and verbal domains. In contrast, strong between-domain associations were observed for STM tasks assessing processing of verbal order and musical rhythm information. These preliminary results are overall in agreement with an integrative approach of verbal and musical STM. At the same time, the results highlight the difficulty of measuring serial order processing in the musical STM domain in a direct and specific manner.
Highlights
Speech and music are both characterized by complex sound sequences that need to be maintained in short-term memory (STM) for further processing and comparison (Hickok, Buchsbaum, Humphries, & Muftuler, 2003; Janata, Tillmann, & Bharucha, 2002; Pfordresher, Palmer, & Jungers, 2007)
Domaingeneral attentional processes are considered to support both item- and order-level maintenance processes, by focusing attention on memoranda and their order, and/or by allowing attentional refreshing of the stored information (Barrouillet, Bernardin, & Camos, 2004; Cowan, 1995). Considered together, these data are in line with theoretical models suggesting that the capacity to maintain verbal information over the short-term is an emergent property resulting from interactions between domain-specific long-term memory (LTM) linguistic knowledge and domain-general attention and serial ordering processes (Cowan, 1995; Majerus, 2013; Postle, 2006)
In studies conducted on non-musician participants, we recently showed that musical STM for serial order is characterized by similar ordering effects as those witnessed in verbal STM tasks (Gorin, Mengal, & Majerus, 2018b, 2018a), as well as a by a similar sensitivity to timing-based interference (Gorin et al, 2016)
Summary
Speech and music are both characterized by complex sound sequences that need to be maintained in short-term memory (STM) for further processing and comparison (Hickok, Buchsbaum, Humphries, & Muftuler, 2003; Janata, Tillmann, & Bharucha, 2002; Pfordresher, Palmer, & Jungers, 2007). Domaingeneral attentional processes are considered to support both item- and order-level maintenance processes, by focusing attention on memoranda and their order, and/or by allowing attentional refreshing of the stored information (Barrouillet, Bernardin, & Camos, 2004; Cowan, 1995) Considered together, these data are in line with theoretical models suggesting that the capacity to maintain verbal information over the short-term is an emergent property resulting from interactions between domain-specific long-term memory (LTM) linguistic knowledge and domain-general attention and serial ordering processes (Cowan, 1995; Majerus, 2013; Postle, 2006)
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