Rattat, A. 1, 2, 3 & Picard, D. 1, 2, 4
1 Laboratoire Octogone-ECCD, EA 4156
2 Université de Toulouse
3 CUFR Jean-François Champollion
4 Institut Universitaire de France
Although it is well established that temporal information processing draws on memory resources (e.g., Brown, 2006), much remains to be uncovered about the nature of these resources. In particular, one important question is how temporal information is encoded and stored in memory as a function of the signal’s sensory modality. The purpose of the present study was to determine the format in which visual, auditory and auditory-visual durations ranging from 400 to 600 ms are encoded and maintained in short-term memory, using suppression conditions. Participants compared two stimulus durations separated by an interval of 8 s. During this time, they performed either an articulatory suppression task, a visuospatial tracking task or no specific task at all (control condition). The results showed that the articulatory suppression task decreased recognition performance for auditory durations but not for visual or bimodal ones, whereas the visuospatial task decreased recognition performance for visual durations but not for auditory or bimodal ones. It is noteworthy that, unexpectedly, whatever the concurrent task performed during the retention interval, recognition performances on bimodal durations were not disrupted These findings support a modality-specific account of short-term memory for durations.