ASA 129th Meeting - Washington, DC - 1995 May 30 .. Jun 06
1aSC8. The effects of talker-specific information on immediate memory
span.
Helena M. Saldana
Speech Res. Lab., Dept. of Psych., Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN 47405
Recent evidence suggests that talker-specific information is retained
along with codes for words and phonemes in long-term memory [Palmeri et al.,
JEP:LMC 19, 309--328 (1993); J. W. Mullenix and D. B. Pisoni, 365--378
(1990)]. If this indexical information is retained, one would expect
talker-specific information to also effect a listener's performance on
short-term memory tasks. However, the predominant trace decay theories of
short-term memory do not predict this. For example, in the articulatory loop
model, items are stored as memory traces that fade after approximately 2 s
unless revived by an articulatory control process [A. D. Baddeley and G. J.
Hitch, Psych. Learn. Motiv. (1974)]. The number of items that can be
reactivated within the decay time can be retained indefinitely. Therefore,
immediate memory span is defined in terms of time or duration of items. In the
present investigation, memory span experiments were conducted in which voice
information was held constant or was changed for each item in the list. Initial
results indicate that a change in voice information results in a decrease in
memory span. Follow-up experiments manipulate speaking rate and presentation
level. A reconceptualization of the articulatory loop model is discussed which
takes into account the encoding of stimulus variability. [Work supported by
NIH.]