Selective interference reveals dissociation between auditory memory for location and pitch

Abstract

Effects of interfering task-irrelevant tones varying in location or pitch on auditory location and pitch n-back tasks were investigated to study whether there is segregation of spatial and non-spatial information processing in the auditory working memory. The subjects performed spatial and non-spatial auditory 1- and 2-back tasks with and without location or pitch interference. In the 1-back tasks, location but not pitch interference significantly impaired location task performance whereas pitch but not location interference disrupted pitch task performance. In the 2-back tasks, neither the location nor the pitch task performance was differentially disrupted by the distractors, suggesting that there is memory load-dependent segregation in the handling of location and pitch information in the neuronal networks engaged in auditory working memory.