ISBN 88-7395-155-4 © 2006 ICMPC 1581 Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, August 22-26 2006 Music in working memory? Examining the effect of pitch proximity on the recall performance of nonmusicians. Victoria J. Williamson Alan D. Baddeley Graham J. Hitch vjb500@york.ac.uk Department of Psychology University of York, York, UK. ABSTRACT Working memory is the temporary storage system that is assumed to underpin our capacity for coherent thought. One working memory model (WMM) assumes an attentional control component, the central executive, together with two subsystems, the visuo-spatial sketchpad that is capable of storing visual and spatial information, and the phonological loop which holds and manipulates speech-like information. Although the WMM has been applied across a wide range of situations, there is little work on its application to music. The present study attempts to apply to music one of the major phenomena of the phonological loop, the observation that immediate recall of sequences of words or letters is impaired when they are similar in sound. (e.g. PCVTD vs. XKWYR). Two experiments were performed, in both of which subjects heard and attempted to reproduce sequences of notes that were either close together in pitch height (proximal) or far apart (distant). Memory for proximal sequences was poorer than for distant in both experiments, lending support to the possibility that the phonological loop may also be capable of holding musical sequences. Keywords Working memory model, Music, Serial recall, Nonmusicians, Pitch proximity, Phonological similarity. INTRODUCTION The WMM (Baddeley and Hitch, 1974; Baddeley, 2000) continues to provide a coherent framework for the examination of short-term memory for visual and verbal stimuli. The phonological loop component of the WMM deals with the storage and rehearsal of language. The main aim of this paper is to explore whether the phonological loop could potentially hold more than phonological material: to investigate whether the loop could deal with acoustical features that are frequently found in music as well as speech. Our question is could working memory process pitch? In: M. Baroni, A. R. Addessi, R. Caterina, M. Costa (2006) Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Music Perception & Cognition (ICMPC9), Bologna/Italy, August 22-26 2006.©2006 The Society for Music Perception & Cognition (SMPC) and European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM). Copyright of the content of an individual paper is held by the primary (first-named) author of that paper. All rights reserved. No paper from this proceedings may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the paper's primary author. No other part of this proceedings may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval system, without permission in writing from SMPC and ESCOM. The WMM has four main components; the central executive and its storage systems: the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketch pad. The final addition to the model is the episodic buffer, a multi-dimensional co- ordination store (Baddeley, 2000). The phonological loop is associated with the storage and rehearsal of verbal materials, typified by the classic memory span experiments, where participants are required to recall sequences of letters or words in the order in which they were presented (Baddeley and Hitch, 1974). The phonological loop comprises two systems. The first of these is the phonological store, which acts as a temporary holding centre for speech-based information. Auditory spoken material is assumed to gain automatic access to the store. The second component is the articulatory control process, where incoming visual information is assumed to be verbally encoded and rehearsed, a process akin to subvocalisation. Traces from the phonological store, such as a list of digits, are assumed to decay in around two seconds unless they are rehearsed in this way (Baddeley, 1997). Music and language in short-term memory Is there any reason to suppose that musical materials may be processed in this system? There is mounting