AUDITORY REPRESENTATIONAL MOMENTUM - MUSICAL SCHEMATA AND MODULARITY

Memory for the final position or orientation of a moving target is oft en shifted or displaced in the direction of anticipated motion, but wh ether this memory shift is produced by a cognitively impenetrable or m odular process is less clear. Previous research induced expectations r egarding future target behavior by presenting examples of that behavio r or by verbally instructing the subject about future target behavior; in this experiment, no induction occurs, and subjects tap previously existing expectations. The subjects are presented with highly schemati c ascending sequences of three discrete tones corresponding to the ton ic (I), dominant (V), and octave (VIII) of a major scale. The third in ducing tone (i.e., the octave) is either flattened slightly, sharpened slightly, or in tune. When the third inducing stimulus is slightly mi stuned, the subjects' musical schemata would be predicted to shift the ir memory for the final pitch closer to a proper tuning. The direction of mistuning is varied so that the direction of schema-driven shift i s either consistent or inconsistent with the direction of implied pitc h motion, thus allowing examination of whether representational moment um is influenced by schemata effects. When the third inducing tone is flattened, memory shift is upward, but when the third inducing tone is sharpened, memory shift is downward. This pattern supports the claim that representational momentum is cognitively penetrable to top-down i nfluence and thus cannot result from a completely modular process.