Recognition memory for single tones with and without context.

Sequences of seven tones were presented, and recognition memory for individual tones of each sequence was tested under varying degrees of context. With no context, the test required recognition of a tone isolated from the sequence; with full context, the tone to be recognized was embedded in the original sequence. A series of three experiments demonstrated that recognition memory was far more accurate under full-context conditions than under no-context conditions and that the superiority was not wholly attributable to the serial position information or the order information provided by the full context. It is suggested that in addition to the processing of limited information for the pitch of isolated tones, pattern (or relational) information is abstracted from a tone sequence and is retrieved in the presence of full context.