scholarly journals The word-length effect provides no evidence for decay in short-term memory

2008 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 875-888 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Lewandowsky ◽  
Klaus Oberauer
Keyword(s):  
Word Length ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Length Effect ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Word Length Effect

Unimpaired Short-term Memory and Rhyme Judgement in Congenitally Speechless Individuals: Implications for the Notion of “Articulatory Coding”

1989 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. V. M. Bishop ◽  
J. Robson
Keyword(s):  
Word Length ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Memory Span ◽  
Visual Presentation ◽  
Phonological Similarity ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Word Length Effect ◽  
Phonological Similarity Effect ◽  
Similarity Effect

In normal adults, concurrent articulation impairs short-term memory, abolishing both the phonological similarity effect and the word length effect when visual presentation is used. It also interferes with ability to judge whether visually presented words rhyme. It is generally assumed that concurrent articulation impairs performance because it prevents people from recoding material into an articulatory form. If this is the explanation, then individuals who are congenitally speechless (anarthric) or speech-impaired (dysarthric) should show the same impairments as normal individuals who are concurrently articulating—i.e. they should have reduced memory spans, fail to show word length and phonological similarity effects in short-term memory, and find rhyme judgement difficult. These predictions were tested in a study of 48 cerebral palsied individuals: 12 anarthric, 12 dysarthric, and 24 controls individually matched to the speech-impaired subjects. There was no impairment of memory span in speech-impaired subjects, who showed normal phonological similarity and word-length effects in short-term memory. Speech-impaired subjects did not differ from their controls in ability to tell whether names of pairs of pictures rhymed. These results challenge the notion that “articulatory coding” is implicated in short-term memory and rhyme judgement and suggests that processes such as rehearsal and phonemic segmentation involve generation of a more abstract central phonological code.

scholarly journals Verbal Short-Term Memory and Motor Speech Processes in Broca’s Aphasia

1995 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Goerlich ◽  
I. Daum ◽  
I. Hertrich ◽  
H. Ackermann
Keyword(s):  
Word Length ◽  
Articulatory Suppression ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Phonological Similarity ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Motor Speech ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Control Subjects ◽  
Broca’S Aphasia

The present study investigated the relationship between verbal short-term memory and motor speech processes in healthy control subjects and five patients suffering from Broca's aphasia. Control subjects showed a phonological similarity effect, a word length effect and an articulatory suppression effect, supporting the hypothesis of a phonological store and an articulatory loop component of short-term memory. A similar effect of phonological similarity was observed in the aphasic patients, while the effects of word length and articulatory suppression were reduced. In control subjects, measures of short-term memory were correlated to measures of motor speech rate only if speech rate was assessed in more complex conditions (such as sentence rather than syllable repetition). There was also evidence of an association of speech impairment and short-term memory deficits in the aphasic patients.

Reconfirmation of the Short-Term Storage Concept

1994 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nelson Cowan ◽  
Noelle L. Wood ◽  
Dawn N. Borne
Keyword(s):  
Word Length ◽  
Limited Information ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Length Effect ◽  
Storage Mechanism ◽  
Immediate Recall ◽  
Word Length Effect ◽  
Short Term Storage ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Term Storage

Recent research questions the existence of a short-term storage mechanism capable of holding limited information temporarily Specifically, serial-recall results with a through-list distractor (TLD) procedure, in which a distracting task is interposed between list items as well as between the list and recall period, generally resemble the results of immediate-recall procedures The present study, however, reconfirms the utility of short-term storage by demonstrating an important difference between immediate and TLD recall A word-length effect, or advantage for lists of shorter words (which minimize short-term forgetting during spoken recall), did not occur with a TLD procedure

The Word-length Effect and Disyllabic Words

2000 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lovatt ◽  
S.E. Avons ◽  
Jackie Masterson
Keyword(s):  
Short Duration ◽  
Serial Recall ◽  
Word Length ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Memory Span ◽  
Visual Presentation ◽  
Length Effect ◽  
Word Length Effect ◽  
Semantic Associations ◽  
Disyllabic Words

Three experiments compared immediate serial recall of disyllabic words that differed on spoken duration. Two sets of long- and short-duration words were selected, in each case maximizing duration differences but matching for frequency, familiarity, phonological similarity, and number of phonemes, and controlling for semantic associations. Serial recall measures were obtained using auditory and visual presentation and spoken and picture-pointing recall. In Experiments 1a and 1b, using the first set of items, long words were better recalled than short words. In Experiments 2a and 2b, using the second set of items, no difference was found between long and short disyllabic words. Experiment 3 confirmed the large advantage for short-duration words in the word set originally selected by Baddeley, Thomson, and Buchanan (1975). These findings suggest that there is no reliable advantage for short-duration disyllables in span tasks, and that previous accounts of a word-length effect in disyllables are based on accidental differences between list items. The failure to find an effect of word duration casts doubt on theories that propose that the capacity of memory span is determined by the duration of list items or the decay rate of phonological information in short-term memory.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document