Audio-Corsi: a novel system to evaluate audio-spatial memory skills*

Spatial memory (SM) is a multimodal representation of the external world, which different sensory inputs can mediate. It is essential in accomplishing everyday activities and strongly correlates with sleep processes. However, despite valuable knowledge of the spatial mechanisms in the visual modality, the multi-sensory aspects of SM have yet to be thoroughly investigated due to a lack of proper technologies.This work presents a novel acoustic system built around 3D audio spatial technology. Our goal was to examine if an afternoon nap can improve memory performance, measured through the acoustic version of the Corsi Block Tapping Task (CBTT), named Audio-Corsi. We tested five adults over two days. During one of the two days (Wake), participants performed the Audio-Corsi before (Pre) and after (Post) a wake resting period; while the other day (Sleep), participants performed the Audio-Corsi before (Pre) and after (Post) a nap. Day orders were randomized. We calculated the memory span for the Pre and Post session in both the Wake and Sleep days. Preliminary results show a significant difference in the memory span between the Wake and Sleep days. Specifically, memory span decreased between the pre-and post-test during the wake day. The opposite trend was found for the sleep day. Results indicate that SM can be improved by sleeping also in the acoustic modality other than the visual one.Clinical Relevance— The technology and procedure we designed and developed could be suitable in clinical and experimental settings to study high-level cognitive skills in the auditory sensory modality and their relationship with sleep, especially when vision is absent or distorted (i.e. blindness).