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The phonological loop, also called the phonetic loop or the articulatory loop, is the part of working memory that rehearses verbal information. It consists of two parts: 

a short-term phonological store with auditory memory traces that are subject to rapid decay and an articulatory rehearsal component that can revive the memory traces.

The first (Opens in a new window)component is a phonological memory store which can hold traces of acoustic or speech based material. Material in this short term store lasts about two seconds unless it is maintained through the use of the second subcomponent, articulatory subvocal rehearsal. Prevention of articulatory rehearsal results in very rapid forgetting (a process known as decay).

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When a song or tune gets latched onto the phonological loop, it is rehearsed in a constant loop. This is to prevent decay. This explains why sometimes, you can't seem to get a song out of your head. The best way to overcome this phenomenon is to distract your attention away from the tune. This will allow the natural process of decay to rapidly set in on the memory, thereby ending the rehearsal process.

Any auditory verbal information is assumed to enter automatically into the phonological store. Visually presented language can be transformed into phonological code by silent articulation and thereby be encoded into the phonological store. This transformation is facilitated by the articulatory control process. The phonological store acts as an 'inner ear', remembering speech sounds in their temporal order, whilst the articulatory process acts as an 'inner voice' and repeats the series of words (or other speech elements) on a loop to prevent them from decaying. The phonological loop may play a key role in the acquisition of vocabulary, particularly in the early childhood years.[1] It may also be vital for learning a second language. 

  • Echoic memory is one of the sensory memory registers; a component of sensory memory (SM) that is specific to retaining auditory information. 

The sensory memory for sounds that people have just perceived is the form of echoic memory.[1] Unlike visual memory, in which our eyes can scan the stimuli over and over, the auditory stimuli cannot be scanned over and over. 

  • Overall, echoic memories are stored for slightly longer periods of time than iconic memories (visual memories)[2]. Auditory stimuli are received by the ear one at a time before they can be processed and understood. For instance, hearing the radio is very different from reading a magazine. 

  • A person can only hear the radio once at a given time, while the magazine can be read over and over again. It can be said that the echoic memory is like a "holding tank" concept, because a sound is unprocessed (or held back) until the following sound is heard, then only can it be made meaningful.[3] 

  • This particular sensory store is capable of storing large amounts of auditory information that is only retained for a short period of time (3–4 seconds). This echoic sound resonates in the mind and is replayed for this brief amount of time shortly after the presentation of auditory stimuli.[4] Echoic memory encrypts only moderately primitive aspects of the stimuli, for example pitch, which specifies localization to the non association brain regions

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