Synonyms
Auditory sensory memory
Definition
The term auditory sensory (echoic) memory refers to the brain’s ability to maintain short-lived but vivid recollections (echoes) of the acoustic qualities of simple auditory stimuli. Such recollections can persist for up to 30 s after the presentation of auditory stimulus, whether or not the listener attends to the stimulus.
Current Knowledge
The most common way to study echoic memory is to present two sounds (e.g., tones of the same or different pitch) that are separated by a delay, called an interstimulus interval (ISI). The task is to compare the sounds to make a subtle acoustic judgement (e.g., same or different). When there is silence between the sounds, performance is very good at short ISIs and declines exponentially at longer ISIs, reaching an asymptotically low level at ISIs longer than 10 s.
The time course of the decay of echoic memory is the same even if participants engage in silent mental activity during the ISI, regardless of...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences and Readings
Cowan, N. (1988). Evolving conceptions of memory storage, selective attention, and their mutual constraints within the human information-processing system. Psychological Bulletin, 104, 163–191.
Letiman, D. I., Sehatpour, P., Higgins, B. A., Foxe, J. J., Sillipo, G., & Javitt, D. C. (2010). Sensory deficits and distributed hierarchical dysfunction in schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry, 167, 818–827.
Naatanen, R., Paavilainen, P., Alho, K., Reinkainen, K., & Sams, M. (1989). Do event-related potentials reveal the mechanism of the auditory sensory memory in the human brain? Neuroscience Letters, 98, 217–221.
Pekkonen, E., Jousmaki, V., Kononen, M., Reinikainen, K., & Partanen, J. (1994). Auditory sensory memory impairment in Alzheimer’s disease: An event-related potential study. Neuroreport, 5, 2537–2540.
Schönwiesner, M., Novitski, N., Pakarinen, S., Carlson, S., Tervaniemi, M., & Näätänen, R. (2007). Heschl’s gyrus, posterior superior temporal gyrus, and mid-ventrolateral prefrontal cortex have different roles in the detection of acoustic changes. Journal of Neurophysiology, 97(3), 2075–2082.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this entry
Cite this entry
Spector, F., Alsemari, A. (2018). Echoic Memory. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_1121
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_1121
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-57110-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-57111-9
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences