The importance of temporal organization in memory for music and language

Four experiments examined the influence of temporal organization in memory for music and language. In Experiments 1, 2, and 3 participants were presented with pairs of audio clips, each corresponding to half of a phrase (linguistic or musical). One group judged if the second clip of a pair was from a familiar source or not, and the first clip served as a prime for the second (familiarity group). Another group judged if the second clip was from the same source as the first clip (same/different group). The pairs comprised two clips from the same familiar source, two clips from two different familiar sources, or the first clip from a familiar and the second clip from an unfamiliar source. The clips could be presented in a forward order or a backward order, in which the second clip (corresponding to the second half of a phrase) was played first. The results showed that both groups demonstrated priming in that they were faster and more accurate in forward and backward directions when both melodies were from the same familiar song (Experiment 1). When pairs involved longer temporal distances between the clips, participants were slower and less accurate (Experiment 2). When instrumental pieces and linguistic pairs comprising familiar sayings were used, both groups demonstrated differences between the musical and linguistic stimuli, with general faster reaction times to the linguistic stimuli (Experiment 3). In Experiment 4, all materials from the previous experiments were used, and song lyrics were also introduced. Instead of pairs of clips, extended clips were played, either in temporal or scrambled order, and all participants performed the familiarity task as the clip played, allowing for an online measure of processing. Participants were faster with the linguistic stimuli compared to the musical stimuli; in addition, responses were slower with scrambled song melodies compared to instrumental melodies. Results are discussed in the context of accessing music and text either separately or simultaneously, and the presence of mechanisms governing processing of music and language.