Auditory recognition memory is inferior to visual recognition memory

Michael A. Cohen; Todd S. Horowitz; Jeremy M. Wolfe

doi:10.1073/pnas.0811884106

Edited by Anne Treisman, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved February 24, 2009 (received for review November 24, 2008)

Abstract

Visual memory for scenes is surprisingly robust. We wished to examine whether an analogous ability exists in the auditory domain. Participants listened to a variety of sound clips and were tested on their ability to distinguish old from new clips. Stimuli ranged from complex auditory scenes (e.g., talking in a pool hall) to isolated auditory objects (e.g., a dog barking) to music. In some conditions, additional information was provided to help participants with encoding. In every situation, however, auditory memory proved to be systematically inferior to visual memory. This suggests that there exists either a fundamental difference between auditory and visual stimuli, or, more plausibly, an asymmetry between auditory and visual processing.

Footnotes

¹To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jmwolfe{at}rics.bwh.harvard.edu
Author contributions: M.A.C., T.S.H., and J.M.W. designed research; M.A.C. performed research; M.A.C., T.S.H., and J.M.W. analyzed data; and M.A.C., T.S.H., and J.M.W. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
↵* d′, a standard index of detectability derived from signal detection theory (7), is computed from hit and false alarm rates. Because false alarm rates are not available for all of the early picture memory studies, we also report hit rates.
↵† Note that 5 participants participated in both conditions of experiment 4, but were only allowed to complete the classification condition after having completed the memory condition.