PROCESSING OF AUDITORILY PRESENTED TIME I NTERVALS OF A FEW SECONDS DURATION - IS THE PHONOLOGICAL LOOP COMPONENT OF WORKING-MEMORY INVOLVED

Working memory has been proposed to contribute to the processing of ti me, rhythm and music; the question which component of working memory i s involved is under discussion. The present study tests the hypothesis that the phonological loop component (Baddeley, 1986) is involved in the processing of auditorily presented time intervals of a few seconds ' duration. Typical effects well known with short-term retention of ve rbal material could be replicated with short-term retention of tempora l intervals: The immediate reproduction of time intervals was impaired under conditions of background music and articulatory suppression. Ne ither the accuracy nor the speed of responses in a (non-phonological) mental rotation task were diminished under these conditions. Processin g of auditorily presented time intervals seems to be constrained by th e capacity of the phonological loop: The immediate serial recall of se quences of time intervals was shown to be related to the immediate ser ial recall of words (memory span). The results confirm the notion that working memory ressources, and especially the phonological loop compo nent, underlie the processing of auditorily presented temporal informa tion with a duration of a few seconds.