Hemispheric Specialization in Selective Attention and Short-term Memory: a Fine-coarse Model of Left- and Right-ear Disadvantages

Overview

Journal Front Psychol

Date 2014 Jan 9

PMID 24399988

Citations 3

Authors

John E Marsh

Lea K Pilgrim

Patrik Sorqvist

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Serial short-term memory is impaired by irrelevant sound, particularly when the sound changes acoustically. This acoustic effect is larger when the sound is presented to the left compared to the right ear (a left-ear disadvantage). Serial memory appears relatively insensitive to distraction from the semantic properties of a background sound. In contrast, short-term free recall of semantic-category exemplars is impaired by the semantic properties of background speech and is relatively insensitive to the sound's acoustic properties. This semantic effect is larger when the sound is presented to the right compared to the left ear (a right-ear disadvantage). In this paper, we outline a speculative neurocognitive fine-coarse model of these hemispheric differences in relation to short-term memory and selective attention, and explicate empirical directions in which this model can be critically evaluated.

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