Attentional strategies and short-term memory in dichotic listening☆

Abstract While listening to lists of dichotically presented numbers, Ss were instructed to attend carefully to the material arriving at one ear. They were then instructed either to report the attended items first (AU order) or to give the unattended items prior to the attended ones (UA order). Regardless of report instructions, the attended ear showed a slightly bowed serial position curve while the unattended ear showed a sharply increasing function. Reporting the attended ear second produced a greater loss in accuracy for attended items than was observed with unattended items when they were reported second. These results indicate that preperceptual auditory storage (echoic memory) is relatively long lasting but can be disrupted by subsequent auditory input. Attended items, unlike unattended items, are lost through verbal or processing interference.

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