Understanding Echoic Memory: Definition and Examples

Most people are familiar with the concept of "memory" as the ability to recall events that happened previously. But what is echoic memory? Echoic memory is sensory memory based on auditory (sound) input. Specifically, echoic memory is sensory memory associated with auditory information received from the environment. The term echoic stems from the word echo, which is in reference to the brief echo, or the reverberation of sound that is transmitted neurologically via this type of sensory memory.

Echoic memory is a type of sensory memory that temporarily stores auditory information or sounds for a brief period, typically for up to 3-4 seconds. It’s a part of sensory memory and holds these sounds for a brief period, typically around 3 to 4 seconds, even after the original sound has ceased. This automatic but temporary auditory memory response is a component of sensory memory. Echoic memory has a role in our perception of auditory stimuli in our world.

Memories start by receiving sensations from our five senses. Of the five, our senses of vision and hearing are more prominent in our perception of our surroundings. Visual sensations are stored very briefly (around 200 milliseconds) in iconic memory.

Echoic Memory is the distinct sensory memory that temporarily holds representations of sounds that we hear, queued for processing further into short term memory. Sound waves cause vibrations in our eardrum, middle ear, and inner ear. We have two primary auditory cortices that very briefly retain these sound representations until they’re either abandoned or moved on to the hippocampus for processing into short-term memory.

Considering our often noisy surroundings, it’s easy to assume that our echoic memory would have trouble keeping up with the rapid-fire barrage of sounds that it receives. Echoic memory continually processes sound from our environment.

Echoic memory is constantly “on,” meaning that your brain automatically picks up sounds and stores them, albeit briefly. Echoic memory starts the chain of events that move the sounds into your short-term memory.

Echoic memory is processed in the left hemisphere of the brain. The left hemisphere of the brain primarily processes echoic memory. The brain processes auditory information from echoic memory in the primary auditory cortex (PAC). The PAC of the left ear stores sounds heard with the right ear and vice versa. Sounds heard with both ears are stored in bilateral PACs.

Echoic memory involves several distinct brain regions on account of its various processes. The rehearsal system and the phonological store seem to be left-hemisphere systems with increased brain activity (Kwon, Reiss & Menon, 2002). As mismatch negativity research suggests, such cognitive and developmental growth is likely to occur until adulthood before experiencing a decline in old age (Glass, Sachse & Suchodoletz, 2008).

How Echoic Memory Works

When you hear something, your auditory nerve sends the sound to your brain. It does this by transmitting electrical signals. At this point, the sound is “raw” and unprocessed audio information.

Echoic memory occurs when this information is received and held by the brain. Specifically, it’s stored in the primary auditory cortex (PAC), which is found in both hemispheres of the brain.

The information is held in the PAC opposite of the ear that heard the sound. For instance, if you hear a sound in your right ear, the left PAC will hold the memory. But if you hear a sound through both ears, both the left and right PAC will retain the information.

After a few seconds, the echoic memory moves into your short-term memory. This is where your brain processes the information and gives meaning to the sound.

The process of echoic memory is automatic. This means audio information enters your echoic memory even if you don’t purposely try to listen.

In fact, your mind is constantly forming echoic memories.

Duration of Echoic Memory

Echoic memory lasts three to four seconds before the information disappears. If someone wishes to remember the brief burst of information in their echoic memory, they must consciously transfer the auditory information into their short-term memory.

This brief duration means your brain can make many echoic memories throughout the day.

Echoic Memory Examples

Here are a few everyday examples:

Talking to another person: Spoken language is a common example. When someone talks, your echoic memory retains each individual syllable. Your brain recognizes words by connecting each syllable to the previous one. Each word is also stored in echoic memory, which allows your brain to understand a full sentence.
Listening to music: Your brain uses echoic memory when you listen to music. It briefly recalls the previous note and connects it to the next one. As a result, your brain recognizes the notes as a song.
Asking someone to repeat themselves: When someone talks to you while you’re busy, you might not fully hear what they say. If they repeat what they said, it will sound familiar because your echoic memory heard them the first time.

An echoic memory example occurs with conversation. Echoic memory allows the brain to retain spoken syllables in order for the brain to process them into intelligible speech. Music and conversation are immediately processed by echoic memory to allow the brain to interpret words and their meaning. An echoic memory example is demonstrated with music. Notes played on a piano are stored in echoic memory long enough for the brain to process the notes into a recognizable song or melody. Echoic memory allows the brain to interpret individual notes into a recognizable song. When someone is distracted and asks a friend, "What did you say?" Echoic memory is the reason that they immediately recognize the words even when they weren't actively listening to the conversation. The person's echoic memory retained the words even though it was not done consciously. Echoic memory allows the recall of words that were spoken when not listening.

Think back to the last time you heard someone tell you a funny joke. After you finished laughing, you probably either repeated it out loud, or at minimum, replayed what you just heard over again in your head. Chances are that if you were asked to repeat the joke word for word immediately after you heard it, assuming it wasn't too long, you would do pretty well. So, how does auditory information, or using the example above, the variety of sound qualities emanating from the joke teller's mouth (pitch, volume, and tone) make its way to our brain when so much is going on around us in our environments? As you might have guessed, it has a lot to do with echoic memory.

Output is involved too. One fun experiment you can try is to sing a song with another person or with a recording.

Interestingly, affected echoic memory stores of stroke victims can be improved with regular listening sessions of music or other recorded verbal stimuli.

How to Improve Your Memory: Techniques and Strategies

Comparison with Iconic Memory

Iconic memory is sensory memory from visual input. Iconic memory, or visual sensory memory, holds visual information. It’s a type of sensory memory, just like echoic memory.

But iconic memory is much shorter. It lasts for less than half a second.

That’s because images and sounds are processed in different ways. Since most visual information doesn’t immediately disappear, you can repeatedly view an image. Plus, when you look at something, you can process all the visual images together.

Echoic memory is longer, which is useful because sound waves are time sensitive. They can’t be reviewed unless the actual sound is repeated. Also, sound is processed by individual bits of information. Each bit gives meaning to the previous bit, which then gives meaning to the sound. As a result, the brain needs more time to store audio information.

Memory testing in both iconic and echoic memory defined the difference between whole and partial reporting. When testing echoic memory, someone is given a series of spoken letters or numbers. They are less able to give a whole report and recall all of the spoken letters. If asked to recall a specific portion of the spoken letters, the partial recall is much higher and accurate. Partial reporting surpasses accuracy when compared to the whole reporting.

Factors Affecting Echoic Memory

All humans have echoic memory. However, various factors can influence how well someone has this type of memory.

Possible factors include:

Age
Neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease
Psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia
Substance use
Hearing loss or impairment
Language disorders

It also depends on the characteristics of a sound, including:

Duration
Frequency
Intensity
Volume
Language (with spoken word)

Additional studies have identified another involuntary response to discriminable differences between sounds held in echoic memory and incoming sounds.

In Baddeley’s model, the central executive combines information from both components with long-term memory.

Memory Systems

To better understand how echoic memory fits into the larger context of memory, let's take a quick look at how human memory systems are structured. According to the Atkinson-Shiffrin theory of memory, memory is comprised of three major components: sensory, short-term, and long-term. Echoic memory is a type of sensory memory. As the name implies, sensory memory involves detecting and maintaining sensory information for potential use.

Echoic memory is a subcategory of human memory, which can be divided into three major categories:

Long-term memory retains events, facts, and skills. It can last for hours to decades.
Short-term memory stores information you recently received. It lasts for a few seconds to 1 minute.
Sensory memory, also called the sensory register, holds information from the senses. It can be further broken down into three types:
- Iconic memory, or visual sensory memory, handles visual information.
- Haptic memory retains information from your sense of touch.
- Echoic memory holds audio information from your sense of hearing.

Discovery of Echoic Memory

In the early 1960s, George Sperling conducted ground-breaking research pertaining to visual sensory memory, otherwise known as iconic memory. Sperling designed and carried out studies that illuminated how the visual sensory memory system works. Naturally, this influenced others to look closely at other sensory memory processes as well.

A German American psychologist by the name of Ulric Neisser defined the concept of echoic memory in 1967. Not long after Sperling's research on iconic memory, cognitive psychologist Ulric Neisser popularized the term echoic memory, referencing the auditory equivalent of what Sperling had discovered in the realm of visual sensory memory. George Sperling’s research on iconic memory in the 1960s subsequently inspired other researchers to test the same phenomenon utilizing similar means in the auditory domain (Darwin, Turvey & Crowder, 1972).

Since the work of Sperling and Neisser, echoic memory has been studied extensively around the world by cognitive psychologists. The work of men like Sperling and Neisser has contributed greatly to the development of the knowledge base on sensory and echoic memory that we possess today.

Clinical Significance

We all forget things sometimes. It’s also normal to experience some memory loss as we get older. But if you’re having serious memory issues, it’s important to see a doctor.

Seek medical help if you have memory problems, such as:

Getting lost in familiar places
Forgetting how to say common words
Repeatedly asking questions
Taking longer to do familiar activities
Forgetting names of friends and family

Depending on your specific issues, a doctor might refer you to a specialist, like a psychologist or neurologist.

Applications and Enhancements

It’s evident that echoic memory plays a strong role in verbal communication, the interpretation of tonal differences in conversation, and the development of language and vocabulary as a whole. Audible aspects of verbal communication include the smaller sounds that make up the words.

Have you ever had an instructor that put you to sleep? It’s not that your topic is boring. There are ways that you can enhance the delivery of information in your lecture, help your audience listen and learn better, and bypass echoic memory overload.

But it’s not all about fun activities like sensory learning and singing. Horror and suspense movies tinker with this part of our brain all the time. William Castle was a film director who innovated many such techniques, many of which influenced Alfred Hitchcock. Never forget: movies are not nearly as visual a medium as we think.

You can also leverage your echoic memory and alternative sensory stores to create auditory sensory memory palaces instead of visualizing them. Your personal memory palaces used with proven memory training will help you improve your memory and launch your ability to recall more information than you imagined possible.

Automobile horns, sirens, alarms, and other alerting mechanisms deliberately draw our attention to alert us through mismatch negativity in our normal flow of sounds.

But a study of students’ ability to concentrate during an exam found that test scores of students were significantly higher when the test was administered in silence.

References

Alain, C., Woods, D. L., & Knight, R. T. (1998). A distributed cortical network for auditory sensory memory in humans.
Baddeley, A. D. (1986). Working memory.
Baddeley, A. D. (2000). The episodic buffer: A new component of working memory?
Baddeley, A. D., & Hitch, G. (1974). Working memory. In G.H. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation: Advances in research and theory (Vol. 8, pp. 47-89).
Bjork, E, & Bjork, R. (1996). Memory.
Carlson, N. R., Buskist, W., & Martin, G. N. (1997). Psychology: The science of behavior.
Clark, T. (1987). Echoic memory explored and applied.
Darwin, C. J., Turvey, M. T., & Crowder, R. G. (1972). An auditory analogue of the Sperling partial report procedure: Evidence for brief auditory storage.
Eriksen, C. W., & Johnson, H. J. (1964). Storage and decay characteristics of nonattended auditory stimuli.
Glass, E., Sachse, S., & von Suchodoletz, W. (2008). Development of auditory sensory memory from 2 to 6 years: an MMN study.
Kwon, H., Reiss, A. L., & Menon, V. (2002). Neural basis of protracted developmental changes in visuo-spatial working memory.
Näätänen R, Escera C (2000). “Mismatch negativity: clinical and other applications”. Audiol.
Nunez, Kirsten. (1 Nov. 2019). Echoic Memory vs. Iconic Memory: How We Perceive the Past.
Radvansky, G. (2005). Human Memory.
Sabri, M., Kareken, D. A., Dzemidzic, M., Lowe, M. J., & Melara, R. D. (2004). Neural correlates of auditory sensory memory and automatic change detection.
Schonwiesner, M., Novitski, N., Pakarinen, S., Carlson, S., Tervaniemi, M., & Naatanen, R. (2007). Heschl’s gyrus, posterior superior temporal gyrus, and mid-ventrolateral prefrontal cortex have different roles in the detection of acoustic changes.
Strous, R. D., Cowan, N., Ritter, W., & Javitt, D. C. (1995). Auditory sensory (” echoic”) memory dysfunction in schizophrenia.
Öğmen, H., & Herzog, M. H. (2016). A new conceptualization of human visual sensory-memory.
Sligte, I. G., Vandenbroucke, A. R., Scholte, H. S., & Lamme, V. (2010). Detailed sensory memory, sloppy working memory.