Dj. Levitin et Pr. Cook, MEMORY FOR MUSICAL TEMPO - ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE THAT AUDITORY MEMORY IS ABSOLUTE, Perception & psychophysics, 58(6), 1996, pp. 927-935
We report evidence that long-term memory retains absolute (accurate) f
eatures of perceptual events. Specifically, we show that memory for mu
sic seems to preserve the absolute tempo of the musical performance. I
n Experiment 1, 46 subjects sang two different popular songs from memo
ry, and their tempos were compared with recorded versions of the,songs
. Seventy-two percent of the productions on two consecutive trials cam
e within 8% of the actual tempo, demonstrating accuracy near the perce
ptual threshold (JND) for tempo. In Experiment 2, a control experiment
, we found that folk songs lacking a tempo standard generally have a l
arge variability in tempo; this counters arguments that memory for the
tempo of remembered songs is driven by articulatory constraints. The
relevance of the present findings to theories of perceptual memory and
memory for music is discussed.