Perceptual organization and task demands jointly shape auditory working memory capacity

Listeners performed two different tasks in which they remembered short sequences comprising either complex tones (generally heard as one melody) or everyday sounds (generally heard as separate objects). In one, listeners judged whether a probe item had been present in the preceding sequence. In the other, they judged whether a second sequence of the same items was identical in order to the preceding sequence. Performance on the first task was higher for everyday sounds; performance on the second was higher for complex tones. These results suggest that how sequences are stored in working memory depends on perceptual organization.

受试者在两项不同的任务中执行操作，其中他们需记住由复杂音调（通常被视为单一旋律）或日常声音（通常被视为独立物体）组成的短序列。在第一项任务中，受试者判断一个探测项是否存在于先前的序列中。在第二项任务中，他们判断相同项目的第二个序列是否与前一个序列在顺序上相同。对第一项任务的表现优于日常声音；对第二项任务的表现优于复杂音调。这些结果表明，序列在工作记忆中的存储方式取决于感知组织。