The effect of auditory processing on serial and temporal processing in other modalities

  

While working on part 8 of the nine part series of presentations about intelligence and cognitive abilities (which will be about auditory processing), I read the following paper which is both easy to read and important (in my view) because it 

connects things that psychologists are not used to connect.

Conway, C.M., Pisoni, D.B. and Kronenberger, W.G.  The Importance of Sound for Cognitive Sequencing 

Abilities: The Auditory Scaffolding Hypothesis. Curr Dir Psychol Sci. Oct 2009; 18(5): 275–279.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2923391/

Main points from the article:

·         Sounds are signals which have a serial and a temporal dimension.  The sequence of sounds in an auditory message (music, oral language) is important.

·         In childhood, we learn to process and interpret all kinds of sequential information by listening to sequences of sounds.  

·         People perform best at tasks requiring perception, learning or memory of stimuli for which sequence, order and timing are important – when the tasks are auditory (not visual or tactile).  For instance, people are better able to repeat sequences of sounds than sequences of light flashes.  People are better able to repeat a series of words they listened to than a series of word they read (non-vocally).

·         Congenitally deaf people perform worse than control groups on non auditory tasks requiring temporal sequencing – for example immediately repeating a series of colors and/or locations.

·         Delay in the acquisition of sequential skills disrupts the ability to acquire grammar.