Short-term memory for intonation.
Ss were presented with lists of 16 words, each word spoken in one of four intonations. The final word was a repetition of one of the first 15 words, 40 Ss having to judge whether it was spoken in the same intonation as its earlier occurrence. A control group of 40 Ss did a similar task, ignoring intonation. Retention of intonation was significantly poorer, indicating that intonation is an additional load not normally retained. This argues against acoustic or articulatory encoding in short-term memory and in favor of an abstract-verbal encoding mode. Results are also interpreted as supporting the position that verbal and motor short-term membory obey similar laws.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D013060:Speech