The memory of a sound might linger in your mind very briefly after the actual auditory stimulus has ended.
It is a bit like an echo of a sound that exists only in your mind.
The brain utilizes severaldifferent types of memory, and echoic memory serves an essential purpose.
Martin-dm / Getty Images
Maybe it’s a ringing noise or a honking noise.
Perhaps it’s the sound of your cat’s meow or dog’s bark.
Whatever the noise, it seems to linger in your brain long after the sound has stopped.
This is what’s known as echoic memory.
What Exactly Is Echoic Memory?
Echoic memory is defined as a pop in of sensory memory that temporarily stores auditory information.
What makes echoic memory so important?
They are presented once and usually cannot be re-experienced unless an audio recording exists.
How Does Echoic Memory Really Work?
According to one model, sensory memory is the firststage of memory.
At any given moment, you are taking in sensory information about the world around you.
This allows you to then focus on details that you might have missed.
Echoic memory is automatic, meaning it happens without having to make a conscious effort.
This turns the sound waves into electrical impulses transmitted to the brain.
Once the sound reaches the brain, an echoic memory is formed.
Sounds are often received by both ears, meaning the echoic memory is stored in both hemispheres.
The brief storage in echoic memory gives the brain time to interpret the sound and determine its characteristics.
The sound may be transferred into working memory for further interpretation.
Information also cannot be retained in echoic memory through rehearsal.
Subsequent sounds are also continually displacing the previously heard information.
Echoic memories are very brief, lasting in the auditory storage system for approximately two to four seconds.
Brain imaging technology has also allowed researchers to learn more about how auditory sensory memory works.
While iconic memory is incredibly short, visual imagery is more enduring.
A sound, on the other hand, is often only produced once.
Depending on the source of the sound, you may never be able to experience it again.
This is why echoic memory is so important.
When people experience impairments in echoic memory, they experience problems with auditory processing and communication.
This can cause poor understanding, difficulty with speech,and problems in learning.
Kids who have problems with echoic memory also havedevelopmental language disorders.
If you think you or your child might have an echoic memory impairment, talk to your doctor.
They can perform tests to look for problems and recommend treatments to help with your specific diagnosis.
Is There a Way for Us to Improve Echoic Memory?
The answer is: maybe.
Another way to maximize your ability to remember sounds is to pair spoken words with visual information.
Sensory Memory
Echoic memory is a bang out ofsensory memory.
This key in of memory is longer-lasting than sensory memory but still relatively short.
Research suggests that information can be retained in short-term memory for about 30 seconds.
Long-term memories are usually divided into two categories:explicit and implicit long-term memory.
Explicit long-term memories involve information that is consciously and effortfully learned and recalled.
Implicit long-term memories are those that form unconsciously.
Certain health conditions can affect a person’s ability to access long-term memories.
Echoic memory can also transfer information into short-term memory, where it can be further interpreted.
Nees MA.Have we forgotten auditory sensory memory?
Retention intervals in studies of nonverbal auditory working memory.Front Psychol.
2016;7. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01892
Tripathy SP, Ogmen H.Sensory memory is allocated exclusively to the current event-segment.Front Psychol.
In M. H. Thaut & V. Hoemberg (Eds.
),Handbook of Neurologic Music Therapy.
Oxford University Press; 2014.
Lu ZL, Williamson SJ, Kaufman L.Behavioral lifetime of human auditory sensory memory predicted by physiological measures.Science.
2017;8:438. doi:10.3389/fphar.2017.00438
Cascella M, Al Khalili Y.Short term memory impairment.
In: StatPearls.StatPearls Publishing;2021.
2018;9:401. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00401
Jahn H.Memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease.Dialogues Clin Neurosci.
2013;15(4):445-454. doi:10.31887/DCNS.2013.15.4/hjahn
