An Investigation of the Effects of Suggestion in Auditory Memory: How Much Do Humans Really Like the Sound of their Own Voice?

Authors

Ethan Axler

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Publication Date

Spring 5-1-2024

Journal

Honours Graduate Theses

Abstract

This study builds upon Weiss et al.'s (2012) findings that vocally produced melodies are better remembered than instrumental versions of the same melodies, an effect the authors referred to as the vocal memory advantage. Weiss et al. (2012) suggested that the vocal memory advantage might reflect preferential processing for biologically meaningful sounds. The present study measures whether listener expectations (i.e., expecting to hear a vocal versus instrumental sound) are sufficient to produce the vocal memory advantage. All participants listened to identical melodies produced by an ambiguous sound source. Participants in the vocal condition were told that these sounds were human whistles, whereas participants in the non-vocal condition were told that these were produced by wind instruments (e.g., a slide whistle). Participants heard half of the melodies in an encoding phase and then rated their confidence as to whether melodies were old or new in a recognition phase, during which old melodies were interspersed with new (“foil”) melodies. Despite not finding any evidence for the vocal memory advantage, analyses indicated both directly and indirectly that the manipulation was successful (i.e., participants believed the sounds originated from human whistles or from wind instruments). Although the study did not suggest that the vocal memory advantage can be engendered from listener expectations alone, the findings do support how instructional manipulations can influence other aspects of perception, emphasizing the delicate interplay between sensation and perception.

Notes

Thesis Advisor(s): Dr. Stephen Van Hedger

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.