Resilient memory for melodies: the number of intervening melodies does not influence novel melody recognition

TY - JOUR

T1 - Resilient memory for melodies

T2 - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

AU - Herff,Steffen

AU - Olsen,Kirk

AU - Dean,Roger

PY - 2018/5/1

Y1 - 2018/5/1

N2 - In many memory domains, a decrease in recognition performance between the first and second presentation of an object is observed as the number of intervening items increases. However, this effect is not universal. Within the auditory domain, this form of interference has been demonstrated in word and single-note recognition, but has yet to be substantiated using relatively complex musical material such as a melody. Indeed, it is becoming clear that music shows intriguing properties when it comes to memory. This study investigated how the number of intervening items influences memory for melodies. In Experiments 1, 2 and 3, one melody was presented per trial in a continuous recognition paradigm. After each melody, participants indicated whether they had heard the melody in the experiment before by responding “old” or “new.” In Experiment 4, participants rated perceived familiarity for every melody without being told that melodies reoccur. In four experiments using two corpora of music, two different memory tasks, transposed and untransposed melodies and up to 195 intervening melodies, no sign of a disruptive effect from the number of intervening melodies beyond the first was observed. We propose a new “regenerative multiple representations” conjecture to explain why intervening items increase interference in recognition memory for most domains but not music. This conjecture makes several testable predictions and has the potential to strengthen our understanding of domain specificity in human memory, while moving one step closer to explaining the “paradox” that is memory for melody.

AB - In many memory domains, a decrease in recognition performance between the first and second presentation of an object is observed as the number of intervening items increases. However, this effect is not universal. Within the auditory domain, this form of interference has been demonstrated in word and single-note recognition, but has yet to be substantiated using relatively complex musical material such as a melody. Indeed, it is becoming clear that music shows intriguing properties when it comes to memory. This study investigated how the number of intervening items influences memory for melodies. In Experiments 1, 2 and 3, one melody was presented per trial in a continuous recognition paradigm. After each melody, participants indicated whether they had heard the melody in the experiment before by responding “old” or “new.” In Experiment 4, participants rated perceived familiarity for every melody without being told that melodies reoccur. In four experiments using two corpora of music, two different memory tasks, transposed and untransposed melodies and up to 195 intervening melodies, no sign of a disruptive effect from the number of intervening melodies beyond the first was observed. We propose a new “regenerative multiple representations” conjecture to explain why intervening items increase interference in recognition memory for most domains but not music. This conjecture makes several testable predictions and has the potential to strengthen our understanding of domain specificity in human memory, while moving one step closer to explaining the “paradox” that is memory for melody.

KW - memory

KW - interference

KW - music perception

KW - recognition

KW - familiarity

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85052985067&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/17470218.2017.1318932

DO - 10.1080/17470218.2017.1318932

M3 - Article

VL - 71

SP - 1150

EP - 1171

JO - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

JF - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

SN - 1747-0218

IS - 5

ER -