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Auditory Memory

Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience

Synonyms

Acoustic memory; Echoic memory

Definition

Auditory memory is the storage of information about sounds, including both acoustic features (sensory memory) and categorical information about sound categories and multi-sound structure.

Detailed Description

Auditory memory plays a critical role in various aspects of human activities, such as music, verbal learning, and communication. For example, when a person says, “I said ‘rice,’ not ‘lice,’” the listener must keep the word “rice” in auditory memory to compare it with the word “lice” afterwards.

It is widely accepted that auditory memory can be partitioned into three components (Cowan 1984; Crowder 1976; Massaro 1975; Neisser 1967), which Massaro terms preperceptual auditory storage (known also as echoic memory), synthesized auditory memory, and generated abstract memory. Figure 1 illustrates these components and their relationships.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Three phases of auditory memory according to Massaro (1975)

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References

  • Cowan N (1984) On short and long auditory stores. Psychol Bull 96:341–370

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  • Cowan N (2001) The magical number 4 in short-term memory: a reconsideration of mental storage capacity. Behav Brain Sci 24:87–114

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  • Crowder R (1976) Principles of learning and memory. Erlbaum, Hillsdale

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  • Kallman HJ, Massaro DW (1979) Similarity effects in backward recognition masking. J Exp Psychol 5:110–128

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  • Massaro DW (1975) Experimental psychology and information processing. Rand McNally, Chicago

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  • Neisser U (1967) Cognitive psychology. Appleton, New York

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Dr. Dawai Li

  2. Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia, 18 McAlester Hall, 65211-2500, Columbia, MO, USA

    Prof. Nelson Cowan

Authors
  1. Dr. Dawai Li
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  2. Prof. Nelson Cowan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dawai Li .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Dieter Jaeger

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, USA

    Ranu Jung

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Li, D., Cowan, N. (2014). Auditory Memory. In: Jaeger, D., Jung, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_244-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_244-2

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  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7320-6

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Auditory Memory
    Published:
    03 September 2019

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_244-3

  2. Auditory Memory
    Published:
    10 May 2014

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_244-2

  3. Original

    Auditory Memory
    Published:
    15 March 2014

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_244-1

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