Abstract
The phonological loop model for retention of auditory verbal material in working memory, developed by Baddeley, assumes that irrelevant speech and phonological similarity influence only one and the same element of the system—that is, the phonological short-term store. We tested this idea by recording eventrelated potentials (ERPs) to auditorily presented letters that were phonologically similar or dissimilar and were to be memorized in the presence of more or less disturbing irrelevant speech. Irrelevant speech and phonological similarity caused ERP effects with clearly different scalp topographies, indicating that these factors influence different brain systems and hence probably different cognitive elements. Moreover, ERPs indicated that the phonological similarity effect might involve processes at the level of phonological analysis. Our data also support recent suggestions that the irrelevant speech effect is not based on the phonological similarity between relevant and irrelevant material, but on the phonological variability within the irrelevant stream.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alho, K., Sams, M., Paavilainen, P., &Näätänen, R. (1986). Small pitch separation and the selective-attention effect on the ERP.Psychophysiology,23, 189–197.
Baddeley, A. D. (1966). Short-term memory for word sequences as a function of acoustic, semantic and formal similarity.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,18, 362–365.
Baddeley, A. [D.] (1986).Working memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press.
Baddeley, A. [D.] (1990).Human memory. Theory and practice. Hove, U.K.: Erlbaum.
Baddeley, A. [D.] (1992a). Is working memory working? The Fifteenth Bartlett Lecture.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,44A, 1–31.
Baddeley, A. [D.] (1992b). Working memory.Science,255, 556–559.
Baddeley, A. [D.] (1992c). Working memory: The interface between memory and cognition.Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience,4, 281–288.
Baddeley, A. [D.], Papagno, C., &Andrade, J. (1993). The sandwich effect: The role of attentional factors in serial recall.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,19, 862–870.
Baddeley, A. [D.], &Salamé, P. (1986). The unattended speech effect: Perception or memory?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,12, 525–529.
Bamber, D. (1979). State trace analysis: A method of testing simple theories causation.Journal of Mathematical Psychology,19, 137–181.
Barrett, S. E., &Rugg, M. D. (1990). Event-related potentials and the phonological matching of picture names.Brain & Language,38, 424–437.
Belleville, S., Peretz, I., &Arguin, M. (1992). Contribution of articulatory rehearsal to short-term memory: Evidence from a case of selective disruption.Brain & Language,43, 713–746.
Colle, H. A. (1980). Auditory encoding in visual short-term recall: Effects of noise intensity and spatial location.Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior,19, 722–735.
Colle, H. A., &Welsh, A. (1976). Acoustic masking in primary memory.Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior,15, 17–31.
Elbert, T., Lutzenberger, W., Rockstroh, B., &Birbaumer, N. (1985). Removal of ocular artifacts from the EEG-A biophysical approach to the EOG.Electroencephalography & Clinical Neurophysiology,60, 455–463.
Gathercole, S. E., &Baddeley, A. D. (1993).Working memory and language. Hove, U.K.: Erlbaum.
Giard, M. H., Perrin, F., Pernier, J., &Peronnet, F. (1988). Several attention-related wave forms in auditory areas: A topographic study.Electroencephalography & Clinical Neurophysiology,69, 371–384.
Hanley, J. R., &Broadbent, C. (1987). The effect of unattended speech on serial recall following auditory presentation.British Journal of Psychology,78, 287–297.
Hansen, J. C., Dickstein, P.W., Berka, C., &Hillyard, S. A. (1983). Event-related potentials during selective attention to speech sounds.Biological Psychology,16, 211–224.
Hansen, J. C., &Hillyard, S. A. (1980). Endogenous brain potentials associated with selective auditory attention.Electroencephalography & Clinical Neurophysiology,49, 277–290.
Johnson, R. (1993). On the neural generators of the P300 component of the event-related potential.Psychophysiology,30, 90–97.
Jones, D. M. (1994). Disruption of memory for lip-read lists by irrelevant speech: Further support for the changing state hypothesis.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,47A, 143–160.
Jones, D. M., &Macken, W. J. (1993). Irrelevant tones produce an irrelevant speech effect: Implications for phonological coding in working memory.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,19, 369–381.
Jones, D. M., &Macken, W. J. (1995). Phonological similarity in the irrelevant speech effect: Within- or between-stream similarity?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,21, 103–115.
Jones, D., Madden, C., &Miles, C. (1992). Privileged access by irrelevant speech to short-term memory: The role of changing state.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,44A, 645–669.
Jones, D., &Morris, N. (1992). Irrelevant speech and serial recall: Implications for theories of attention and working memory.Scandinavian Journal of Psychology,33, 212–229.
Lang, W., Starr, A., Lang, V., Lindinger, G., &Deecke, L. (1992). Cortical DC potential shifts accompanying auditory and visual shortterm memory.Electroencephalography & Clinical Neurophysiology,82, 285–295.
LeCompte, D. C. (1994). Extending the irrelevant speech effect beyond serial recall.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,20, 1396–1408.
Lehmann, D. (1987). Principles of spatial analysis. In A. S. Gevins & A. Rémond (Eds.),Handbook of electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology: Vol. 1. Methods of analysis of brain electrical and magnetic signals (pp. 309–354). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Loftus, G. R., &Masson, M. E. J. (1994). Using confidence intervals in within-subject designs.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,1, 476–490.
Longoni, A. M., Richardson, J. T. E., &Aiello, A. (1993). Articulatory rehearsal and phonological storage in working memory.Memory & Cognition,21, 11–22.
Martín-Loeches, M., Schweinberger, S. R., & Sommer, W. (1997).The phonological similarity effect in working memory: An ERP study comparing auditory and visual input modalities. Manuscript sumbitted for publication.
McCarthy, G., &Wood, C. C. (1985). Scalp distributions of eventrelated potentials: An ambiguity associated with analysis of variance models.Electroencephalography & Clinical Neurophysiology,62, 203–208.
Miles, C., Jones, D. M., &Madden, C. A. (1991). Locus of the irrelevant speech effect in short-term memory.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,17, 578–584.
Näätänen, R. (1990). The role of attention in auditory information processing as revealed by event-related potentials and other brain measures of cognitive function.Behavioral & Brain Sciences,13, 201–288.
Näätänen, R. (1992).Attention and brain function. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Oldfield, R. C. (1971). The assessment and analysis of handedness: The Edinburgh inventory.Neuropsychologia,9, 97–113.
Papagno, C., &Vallar, G. (1992). Phonological short-term memory and the learning of novel words: The effect of phonological similarity and item length.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,44A, 41–67.
Patterson, J. V., Pratt, H., &Starr, A. (1991). Event-related potentials correlates of the serial position effect in short-term memory.Electroencephalography & Clinical Neurophysiology,78, 424–437.
Praamstra, P., Meyer, A. S., &Levelt, W. J. M. (1994). Neurophysiological manifestations of phonological processing: Latency variation of a negative ERP component timelocked to phonological mismatch.Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience,6, 204–219.
Praamstra, P., &Stegeman, D. F. (1993). Phonological effects on the auditory N400 event-related brain potential.Cognitive Brain Research,1, 73–86.
Pratt, H., Michalewski, H. J., Patterson, J. V., &Starr, A. (1989). Brain potentials in a memory-scanning task. III. Potentials to the items being memorized.Electroencephalography & Clinical Neurophysiology,73, 41–51.
Ruchkin, D., Grafman, J., Krauss, G. L., Johnson, R., Jr.,Canoune, H., &Ritter, W. (1994). Event-related brain potential evidence for a verbal working memory deficit in multiple sclerosis.Brain,117, 289–305.
Ruchkin, D., Johnson, R., Jr.,Canoune, H., &Ritter, W. (1990). Short-term memory storage and retention: An event-related brain potential study.Electroencephalography & Clinical Neurophysiology,76, 419–439.
Ruchkin, D., Johnson, R., Jr.,Grafman, J., Canoune, H., &Ritter, W. (1992). Distinctions and similarities among working memory processes: An event-related potential study.Cognitive Brain Research,1, 53–66.
Rugg, M. D. (1984a). Event-related potentials and the phonological processing of words and non-words.Neuropsychologia,22, 435–443.
Rugg, M. D. (1984b). Event-related potentials in phonological matching tasks.Brain & Language,23, 225–240.
Salamé, P., &Baddeley, A. [D.] (1982). Disruption of short-term memory by unattended speech: Implications for the structure of working memory.Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior,21, 150–164.
Salamé, P., &Baddeley, A. [D.] (1986). Phonological factors in STM: Similarity and the unattended speech effect.Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society,24, 263–265.
Salamé, P., &Baddeley, A. [D.] (1989). Effects of background music on phonological short-term memory.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,41A, 107–122.
Schwent, V. L., Hillyard, S. A., &Galambos, R. (1976). Selective attention and the auditory vertex potential. II. Effects of signal intensity and masking noise.Electroencephalography & Clinical Neurophysiology,40, 615–622.
Starr, A., Barrett, G., Pratt, H., Michalewski, H. J., &Patterson, J. V. (1990). Electrophysiological measures of short-term memory. In T. Shallice & G. Vallar (Eds.),Neuropsychological impairments of short-term memory (pp. 94–110). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Szirtes, J., &Vaughan, H. G., Jr. (1977). Characteristics of cranial and facial potentials associated with speech production.Electroencephalography & Clinical Neurophysiology,43, 386–396.
Vallar, G., &Cappa, S. F. (1987). Articulation and verbal short-term memory: Evidence from anarthria.Cognitive Neuropsychology,4, 55–78.
Vallar, G., Corno, M., &Basso, A. (1992). Auditory and visual shortterm memory in aphasia.Cortex,28, 383–389.
Woods, D. L. (1990). The physiological basis of selective attention: Implications of event-related potential studies. In J. W. Rohrbaugh, R. Parasuraman, & R. Johnson, Jr. (Eds.),Event-related brain potentials: Basic issues and applications (pp. 179–209). New York: Oxford University Press.
Woods, D. L., Alho, K., &Algazi, A. (1991). Brain potential signs of feature processing during auditory selective attention.NeuroReport,2, 189–192.
Woods, D. L., Hillyard, S. A., &Hansen, J. C. (1984). Event-related brain potentials reveal similar attentional mechanisms during selective listening and shadowing.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,10, 761–777.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This research was supported by a grant of the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Spain) to M.M.-L. and by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (So 177/4-2).
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Martín-Loeches, M., Schweinberger, S.R. & Sommer, W. The phonological loop model of working memory: An ERP study of irrelevant speech and phonological similarity effects. Mem Cogn 25, 471–483 (1997). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03201123
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03201123