Date Thesis Awarded
5-2009
Access Type
Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only
Degree Name
Bachelors of Science (BS)
Department
Neuroscience
Advisor
Jeanine Stefanucci
Committee Members
Joshua A. Burk
Randolph A. Coleman
Abstract
Can a small change in the parameter of a to-be-remembered tone sequence affect how likely it is that a listener will recall it later? Naturally occurring amplitude envelopes (the intensity of a sound over time) have been shown to facilitate memorization of a series of tones better than computer-generated, flat envelopes (Schutz, Stefanucci, Carberry & Roth, 2009). Specifically, tone sequences with percussive tone envelopes (those that have a short attack and an exponential decay) are learned faster than those with flat tone envelopes (tones with no attack or decay, only a static onset and offset of the amplitude), even though both sets of tone sequences are easily recognized. However, when participants are given equal exposure to either a set of percussive tones or flat tones, those who learn with percussive tones recall significantly more sequences than those who learn with flat tones. The experiments in this thesis replicated the effect found in Schutz et al. (2009) and suggest that the cognitive advantage of percussive amplitude envelopes does not have a specific locus (e.g. encoding or retrieval), but rather stems from information inherent to the tones themselves, and that this is effect is due to the ecological validity of percussive tones.
Recommended Citation
Baum, Sarah Haller, "The Cognitive Advantage of Percussive Auditory Information" (2009). Undergraduate Honors Theses. William & Mary. Paper 328.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/328
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Comments
Thesis is part of Honors ETD pilot project, 2008-2013. Migrated from Dspace in 2016.