Storage of information in transient auditory memory

This study concerns the manner in which features of auditory stimuli are stored in acoustic memory. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to sequences of tones in which sequential, infrequent deviant tones were presented in a row, each of which differed from the frequent standard tones along a different stimulus dimension. The object was to determine whether a change in a single feature of a stimulus would have an effect on the entire representation of the standard tone in memory, or only on the representation of the stimulus dimension by which the first deviant differed from the standards. It was found that the amplitude of the mismatch negativity elicited by subsequent deviants was not reduced by the presence of the first deviant, supporting independent storage of features.