Estimating working memory capacity for lists of nonverbal sounds.

ABSTRACT: Working memory (WM) capacity limit has been extensively studied in the domains of visual and verbal stimuli. Previous studies have suggested a fixed WM capacity of typically about three or four items, on the basis of the number of items in working memory reaching a plateau after several items as the set size increases. However, the fixed WM capacity estimate appears to rely on categorical information in the stimulus set (Olsson & Poom Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102:8776-8780, 2005). We designed a series of experiments to investigate nonverbal auditory WM capacity and its dependence on categorical information. Experiments 1 and 2 used simple tones and revealed capacity limit of up to two tones following a 6-s retention interval. Importantly, performance was significantl

SUBMITTER: Li D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3527657 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature