How does auditory memory work

There are different kinds of memory, including long-term memory, short-term memory, working memory, auditory memory, and visual memory. Auditory memory requires working memory. Working memory is responsible for processing higher-level linguistic information, and if the task is more complex, working memory spends more time processing Daneman and Carpenter, Working memory capacity has significant relationships with reading decoding, language comprehension, spelling, following directions, vocabulary development, note taking, and GPA.

Sub-skills of auditory comprehension that we would be expecting our children to develop. Consider these for a moment:. Exploring the nature of this relationship further, we compared gamma activity time courses between better and poorer performers. Interestingly, neither group differed in the absolute magnitude of stimulus-specific activations but in their timing.

As shown in Figure 2 , better performers showed a more sustained representation of the memorized information until the end of the delay period. Correlations between gamma activity and performance have been reported in a wide variety of paradigms Rieder et al. Here they supported the functional relevance of activating representations of the sample sounds for accurate comparisons with the test stimuli. Figure 2.

Time courses of the differentiation score see legend to Figure 1 for good and bad performers in blue and red, respectively for the short delay duration A and the long duration B in the study by Kaiser et al. Studies that compared working memory for sound locations and sound patterns directly supported the notion of dorsal and ventral streams for the processing of auditory spatial and non-spatial information, respectively Rauschecker and Tian, In line with this dual-stream model, positive ERP deflections at — ms after both memory and test stimuli were found at fronto-temporal electrodes for a non-spatial AWM task and at centro-parietal electrodes for a spatial task with ms noise bursts Alain et al.

However, several differences between studies make it hard to compare these findings directly: Alain et al. Moreover data were shown from a few selected e. Differences between auditory location and pitch working memory were found also for the N1 component to pure tones serving as test stimuli, suggesting an early onset of segregated processing at about ms Anourova et al.

The N1 findings were replicated in a subsequent study requiring the memorization of either location or frequency of short sound sequences Anurova et al. In addition, sample sounds elicited more negative ERPs at and ms in the frequency than location task and more positive ERPs at — ms for the location than frequency task.

Source analysis of late positive potentials to probe stimuli revealed a predominant involvement of middle temporal cortex in pitch and of occipito-temporal regions in location processing Anurova et al. In contrast, a late slow wave was modulated by memory load but did not differ between tasks. In line with the studies reported above that used simple sounds, an n -back working memory task with environmental sounds presented at different virtual locations revealed segregation between spatial and non-spatial processing from about ms onwards in auditory association cortex and fronto-parietal cortex Alain et al.

In summary, these ERP studies showed an early topographical segregation during encoding and retrieval of spatial versus non-spatial auditory information in accordance with the dual-stream model.

Following up our studies on stimulus-specific gamma activity by comparing non-spatial and spatial AWM directly, we demonstrated the task-dependence of stimulus-specific activations Kaiser et al. The same filtered noise sounds that could differ in frequency and perceived lateralization were used in both tasks.

Separate components of gamma activity 50—90 Hz during the delay phase distinguished between both stimulus features. Different lateralization angles were represented by posterior gamma activity, and different sound frequencies, by fronto-central components. These feature-specific activations peaked at — ms before the onset of the test stimulus and showed a clear task-dependence: amplitude modulations were observed only when the represented feature was task-relevant.

Task performance was correlated both with enhanced activity for the task-relevant stimulus attribute and reduced activity for the task-irrelevant feature. This study showed that representations of auditory features are reactivated depending on task demands and that performance benefits from activating task-relevant and attenuating task-irrelevant representations.

The present findings are consistent with the notion of working memory as an emergent property relying on the dynamic interplay between attentional and sensory systems Pasternak and Greenlee, EEG and MEG provide measures of neural activity with a sufficiently high temporal resolution to distinguish encoding, maintenance and retrieval in AWM. While there is some evidence for task-specific differences in ERP responses during encoding Anurova et al. Stimulus maintenance is reflected by sustained ERP deflections whose topography varies with the task-relevant stimulus feature.

The maintenance of non-spatial sound attributes like pitch is accompanied by a fronto-central negativity Guimond et al. This slow wave reflects variations in memory load and is topographically distinct from more posterior activations during visual working memory Lefebvre et al. Source analysis has demonstrated generators in auditory and frontal areas, suggesting that the short-term retention of pitch is partially accomplished by the prolonged activation or the reactivation of the brain regions underlying the perceptual processing of pitch Grimault et al.

In contrast, sound location seems to be processed by more posterior, parieto-occipito-temporal regions. The topographical differences between sound frequency versus location processing in AWM are consistent with the model of segregated auditory ventral and dorsal streams, respectively Alain et al. ERP work comparing individual sound features has demonstrated differential processing of spatial versus non-spatial sound parameters starting from ms after stimulus onset.

These differences pertained mainly to encoding, early maintenance and retrieval but were less evident during the later part of a longer retention period Anurova et al. Analyses of spectral signals have demonstrated sound feature-specific increases of gamma activity both during maintenance and retrieval. However, representations of task-relevant information were not sustained across the delay period but were temporally related to the onset of the test stimulus Kaiser et al.

In contrast, coherence between sensory representation regions and prefrontal cortex showed a sustained increase across the maintenance phases of spatial and non-spatial AWM paradigms Lutzenberger et al. In summary, both encoding and retrieval are characterized by the enhanced processing of task-relevant stimuli or stimulus attributes.

Maintenance relies on a combination of a prolonged activation or a reactivation of sensory representations and an activation of frontal executive networks with increased coupling between both sets of regions. While the majority of studies have focused on the maintenance aspect of working memory, research on mental operations on stored sounds is very limited.

Working memory operations include the selection of one stored item amongst others, updating the focus of attention or the content of working memory with new items, rehearsal and coping with interference Bledowski et al. Shifts of attention to auditory objects held in working memory were associated with the activation of fronto-parietal attention systems, and further temporal and parietal activations distinguished between spatial and category-related attention cues Backer et al.

Mental transformation and updating of auditory memory contents involved increased frontal and temporal theta power and enhanced fronto-temporal theta phase synchrony Kawasaki et al. These analyses may help to reveal further communalities and differences between visual and auditory working memory. The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Alain, C. Cortex 19, — Anourova, I. Evidence for dissociation of spatial and nonspatial auditory information processing. Neuroimage 14, — Anurova, I. Differences between auditory evoked responses recorded during spatial and nonspatial working memory tasks. Neuroimage 20, — Cortical generators of slow evoked responses elicited by spatial and nonspatial auditory working memory tasks. Backer, K. Neural dynamics underlying attentional orienting to auditory representations in short-term memory.

Bledowski, C. Basic operations in working memory: contributions from functional imaging studies. Brain Res. Chao, L. Contribution of human prefrontal cortex to delay performance. Drew, T. Event-related potential measures of visual working memory.

EEG Neurosci. Gaab, N. Functional anatomy of pitch memory—an fMRI study with sparse temporal sampling. Neuroimage 19, — Grimault, S. Load-dependent brain activity related to acoustic short-term memory for pitch: magnetoencephalography and fMRI.

Brain activity is related to individual differences in the number of items stored in auditory short-term memory for pitch: evidence from magnetoencephalography.

Neuroimage 94, 96— Kids need to be able to keep all the numbers in their head, figure out what operation to use, and create a written math problem at the same time. Kids with weak working memory skills have difficulty grabbing and holding on to that incoming information.

In math class, they may know how to do different kinds of calculations. However, they run into trouble with word problems. Kids rely on both incoming information and information stored in working memory to do an activity.

This can make it challenging to follow multi-step directions. The part of the brain responsible for working memory is also responsible for maintaining focus and concentration. Here, working memory skills help kids remember what they need to be paying attention to. Take, for example, doing a long division problem.

Your child needs working memory not only to come up with the answer, but also to concentrate on all of the steps involved in getting there. Kids with weak working memory skills have trouble staying on task to get to the end result.

You could think of it like the learning equivalent of walking into a room and forgetting what you came in to get. Working memory is responsible for many of the skills children use to learn to read. Auditory working memory helps kids hold on to the sounds letters make long enough to sound out new words. Visual working memory helps kids remember what those words look like so they can recognize them throughout the rest of a sentence. When working effectively, these skills keep kids from having to sound out every word they see.

This helps them read with less hesitation and become fluent readers.