TY - JOUR

T1 - Long-term implicit memory for sequential auditory patterns in humans

AU - Bianco, Roberta

AU - Harrison, Peter M.C.

AU - Hu, Mingyue

AU - Bolger, Cora

AU - Picken, Samantha

AU - Pearce, Marcus T.

AU - Chait, Maria

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2020, eLife Sciences Publications Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2020/5

Y1 - 2020/5

N2 - Memory, on multiple timescales, is critical to our ability to discover the structure of our surroundings, and efficiently interact with the environment. We combined behavioural manipulation and modelling to investigate the dynamics of memory formation for rarely reoccurring acoustic patterns. In a series of experiments, participants detected the emergence of regularly repeating patterns within rapid tone-pip sequences. Unbeknownst to them, a few patterns reoccurred every ~3 minutes. All sequences consisted of the same 20 frequencies and were distinguishable only by the order of tone-pips. Despite this, reoccurring patterns were associated with a rapidly growing detection-time advantage over novel patterns. This effect was implicit, robust to interference, and persisted up to 7 weeks. The results implicate an interplay between short (a few seconds) and long-term (over many minutes) integration in memory formation and demonstrate the remarkable sensitivity of the human auditory system to sporadically reoccurring structure within the acoustic environment.

AB - Memory, on multiple timescales, is critical to our ability to discover the structure of our surroundings, and efficiently interact with the environment. We combined behavioural manipulation and modelling to investigate the dynamics of memory formation for rarely reoccurring acoustic patterns. In a series of experiments, participants detected the emergence of regularly repeating patterns within rapid tone-pip sequences. Unbeknownst to them, a few patterns reoccurred every ~3 minutes. All sequences consisted of the same 20 frequencies and were distinguishable only by the order of tone-pips. Despite this, reoccurring patterns were associated with a rapidly growing detection-time advantage over novel patterns. This effect was implicit, robust to interference, and persisted up to 7 weeks. The results implicate an interplay between short (a few seconds) and long-term (over many minutes) integration in memory formation and demonstrate the remarkable sensitivity of the human auditory system to sporadically reoccurring structure within the acoustic environment.

KW - Auditory scene analysis

KW - Memory

KW - Perception

KW - PPM

KW - Predictive coding

KW - Sequential pattern

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85086174996&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.7554/eLife.56073

DO - 10.7554/eLife.56073

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 32420868

AN - SCOPUS:85086174996

VL - 9

JO - eLife

JF - eLife

SN - 2050-084X

M1 - e56073

ER -