Tau and Kappa Effects: The Case of Space-Like-Extent Frequencies Bruno Berberian Faculté des Sciences du Sport Université de la Méditerranée Jean-Christophe Sarrazin Cognitive Science Research Unit Université Libre de Bruxelles Marie-Dominique Giraudo Faculté des Sciences du Sport Université de la Méditerranée The organization of tonal-temporal information in a memory task was studied in two experiments. The stimuli consisted of four different configurations of eight beeps, presented sequentially. In two configurations, the stimuli were tonal-time congruent, with (constant or variable) inter-stimulus tonal distances corresponding to (constant or variable) inter-stimulus time intervals. In the two other configurations, the stimuli were tonal-time incongruent, with (constant or variable) inter-stimulus tonal dis- tances not corresponding to (variable or constant) inter-stimulus time intervals. Af- ter a learning phase consisting of 20 presentations of the target configuration, partici- pants reproduced the spatial (Experiment 1) or temporal (Experiment 2) characteristics of the target 60 times in succession without ever re-examining the tar- get configuration. Classically, in incongruent space-time conditions, the effects of variable inter-stimulus time intervals or inter-stimulus space intervals on the repro- duction of constant distances (Tau effect) and constant durations (Kappa effect), re- spectively, are observed. However, our results showed that this was not the case when the spatial dimension was substituted for the tonal dimension (i.e., the distances be- tween consecutive tones). The results are discussed in the light of the properties of ECOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY, 19(3), 215–238 Copyright © 2007, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Correspondence should be addressed to M. D. Giraudo, UMR 6152 “Mouvement et Perception,” Faculté des Sciences du Sport, Université de la Méditerranée CP 910, 13288 Marseille Cedex 09, France. E-mail: giraudo@laps.univ-mrs.fr