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memory for pitch
Title: memory for pitch
Dear all,
Baddeley's working memory model doesn't
take pitch information, or musical information, into account.
Concerning short term memory for pitch, a while ago I carried out a
number of experiments showing that this is the function of a
specialized memory system. For example, if two test tones are
separated by a sequence of intervening tones, recognition is severely
degraded, even though the subjects are told to ignore the intervening
tones. But if the tones are instead separated by a sequence of spoken
numbers, there is little if any degradation of pitch recognition, even
when the subjects are asked to recall the numbers. See:
Deutsch, D. Tones and numbers: Specificity
of interference in immediate memory. Science,1970, 168,
1604-1605
posted as a PDF at
http://psy.ucsd.edu/~ddeutsch/psychology/deutsch_publications.htm
The effect has been replicated and extended
by others, particularly Semal and Demany (references posted at my
website).
Also my CD 'Phantom words, and other curiosities' -
available from
http://www.philomel.com - contains a full experiment demonstrating this
effect, and this experiment makes for an excellent classroom
demonstration - the students find the contrast between the
interpolated tones and interpolated numbers surprising and
entertaining.
In other experiments, short term memory for pitch has been shown to be
the function of a system in which highly specific and orderly
interactive effects take place. For reviews, see the two book chapters
also posted as PDFs on the above website:
Deutsch, D. The organization of short-term memory for a single
acoustic attribute. In D. Deutsch & J. A. Deutsch (Eds.),
Short-term memory. New York: Academic Press, 1975.
l07-l51
Deutsch, D. Processing of pitch combinations. In Deutsch, D. (Ed.)
The psychology of music, 2nd Edition, Academic Press, 1999,
349-412.
Several articles demonstrating specific effects are posted as PDFs on
this website, and on
http://psy.ucsd.edu/~ddeutsch/psychology/deutsch_research9.html
where other references are also
given.
About the issue of rehearsal strategy,
subjects in these experiments keep trying to adopt different
strategies, and generally believe they have found the 'ideal' strategy
for a while, only to abandon it for a different one. But their actual
data show no advantage of one strategy over another. So at least where
memory for the pitch of a single tone is concerned, performance
appears to be substantially unrelated to rehearsal strategy, and
appears to be the function of a low-level system that has
characteristics which are very similar to the system that handles
pitch information at the incoming level. But one additional thing -
it's easy to show a dissociation between 'what' and
'when' information in pitch memory. See, for example:
Deutsch, D. Dislocation of tones in a
musical sequence: A memory illusion. Nature, 1970, 226,
No. 5242
and
Deutsch, D. Effect of repetition of
standard and comparison tones on recognition memory for pitch.
Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1972, 93,
156-162,
both of which are available as PDFs at the
above websites.
Cheers,
Diana
--
Professor Diana Deutsch
Department of
Psychology
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Dr.
#0109
La Jolla, CA 92093-0109, USA
858-453-1558 (tel)
858-453-4763 (fax)
http://www-psy.ucsd.edu/~ddeutsch
http://www.philomel.com