Auditory short-term memory for pitch loses precision over time

Abstract

The impact of retention interval duration on the fidelity of pitch memory was investigated. Listeners heard “target” pure tones, followed by a retention interval (2–8 s), then a response period in which the frequency of a novel sound was adjusted to match their memory of the target. The variability of pitch matches increased with retention interval duration. Supplemental analyses of the most accurate trials and temporal dynamics of matching suggest that decreasing precision was not due to differences in complete forgetting among intervals. Results suggest that the precision of short-term memory for pitch may continuously degrade over time.