CAN AUDITORY MEMORY FOR TONE PITCH BE REHEARSED

This study investigated whether nonverbal auditory memory representati ons can be affected by rehearsal strategies. The comparison of the pit ches of 2 tones separated by a silent, variable delay interval was exa mined in 2 experiments, both when participants were instructed to rehe arse the pitch of the first tone covertly during the intertone interva l and when such rehearsal was prevented by 1 of 2 attention-demanding distracter tasks. In both experiments, delayed tone comparison perform ance was superior when participants were permitted to rehearse, and th e type of distracter task (verbal vs. auditory) had no effect on perfo rmance under distraction instructions. The results suggest that audito ry imagery can be used strategically to slow the rate of decay of audi tory information for tone pitch.