The effects of intervening interference on working memory for sound location

Inter-aural phase differences were used to study working memory for perceived auditory position quantified as a change in the difference limen (DL) in equivalent auditory angle across 300-, 5000-, and 15 000-ms retention intervals. Data were obtained for the medium and long intervals both in the presence and absence of intervening tones. Intervening stimuli within the medium and long inter-comparison intervals produced a significant increase in the DLs compared those obtained in the corresponding quiet conditions. The DL for the 300-ms interval was roughly equivalent to that obtained for the medium interval without intervening tones while that obtained for 15 000-ms interval was significantly greater than that obtained for either of the shorter intervals. The results suggest that the temporal decay of information within AWM of a listerner regarding the location of a sound within their environment is so gradual that it can be maintained in trace memory for tens of seconds in the absence of intervening acoustic signals. Conversely, the presence of interpolated sounds within the retention interval may facilitate the use of context memory, resulting in a less detailed, but relevant representation of the location that is resistant to further degradation.