PMID- 20547219 OWN - NLM STAT- MEDLINE DCOM- 20101207 LR - 20100817 IS - 1878-5891 (Electronic) IS - 0378-5955 (Linking) VI - 268 IP - 1-2 DP - 2010 Sep 1 TI - The effects of intervening interference on working memory for sound location as a function of inter-comparison interval. PG - 227-33 LID - 10.1016/j.heares.2010.06.004 [doi] AB - This study examined the effects of inter-comparison interval duration and intervening interference on auditory working memory (AWM) for auditory location. Interaural phase differences were used to produce localization cues for tonal stimuli and the difference limen for interaural phase difference (DL-IPD) specified as the equivalent angle of incidence between two sound sources was measured in five different conditions. These conditions consisted of three different inter-comparison intervals [300 ms (short), 5000 ms (medium), and 15,000 ms (long)], the medium and long of which were presented both in the presence and absence of intervening tones. The presence of intervening stimuli within the medium and long inter-comparison intervals produced a significant increase in the DL-IPD compared to the medium and long inter-comparison intervals condition without intervening tones. The result obtained in the condition with a short inter-comparison interval was roughly equivalent to that obtained for the medium inter-comparison interval without intervening tones. These results suggest that the ability to retain information about the location of a sound within AWM decays slowly; however, the presence of intervening sounds readily disrupts the retention process. Overall, the results suggest that the temporal decay of information within AWM regarding the location of a sound from a listener's 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 intervening sounds within the retention interval may facilitate the use of context memory, even for shorter retention intervals, resulting in a less detailed, but relevant representation of the location that is resistant to further degradation. CI - Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. FAU - Ries, Dennis T AU - Ries DT AD - Auditory Perception Laboratory, School of Hearing, Speech and Language Sciences, W241 Grover Center, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701, USA. ries@ohio.edu FAU - Hamilton, Traci R AU - Hamilton TR FAU - Grossmann, Aurora J AU - Grossmann AJ LA - eng PT - Comparative Study PT - Journal Article DEP - 20100612 PL - Netherlands TA - Hear Res JT - Hearing research JID - 7900445 SB - IM MH - Acoustic Stimulation MH - Adult MH - Audiometry MH - Auditory Pathways/*physiology MH - *Auditory Perception MH - Auditory Threshold MH - Cues MH - Female MH - Functional Laterality MH - Humans MH - *Memory, Short-Term MH - Perceptual Masking MH - *Sound Localization MH - Time Factors MH - Young Adult EDAT- 2010/06/16 06:00 MHDA- 2010/12/14 06:00 CRDT- 2010/06/16 06:00 PHST- 2009/06/04 00:00 [received] PHST- 2010/05/18 00:00 [revised] PHST- 2010/06/07 00:00 [accepted] PHST- 2010/06/16 06:00 [entrez] PHST- 2010/06/16 06:00 [pubmed] PHST- 2010/12/14 06:00 [medline] AID - S0378-5955(10)00290-X [pii] AID - 10.1016/j.heares.2010.06.004 [doi] PST - ppublish SO - Hear Res. 2010 Sep 1;268(1-2):227-33. doi: 10.1016/j.heares.2010.06.004. Epub 2010 Jun 12.