Articulatory Rehearsal Is More Than Refreshing Memory Traces

Abstract

This study examined whether additional articulatory rehearsal induced temporary durability of phonological representations, using a 10-s delayed nonword free recall task. Three experiments demonstrated that cumulative rehearsal between the offset of the last study item and the start of the filled delay (Experiments 1 and 3) and a fixed rehearsal of the immediate item during the subsequent interstimulus interval (Experiments 2 and 3) improved free recall performance. These results suggest that an additional rehearsal helps to stabilize phonological representations for a short period. Furthermore, the analyses of serial position curves suggested that the frequency of the articulation affected the durability of the phonological representation. The significance of these findings as clues of the mechanism maintaining verbal information (i.e., verbal working memory) is discussed.

Simple measurement models for complex working-memory tasks.

“…Moreover, the extent of cumulative rehearsal correlated positively with serial recall performance. These findings are compatible with the assumption that articulatory rehearsal does not only protect memory representations from decay, but rather strengthens them beyond their state after presentation (see also Nishiyama & Ukita, 2013). Against this possibility, an exploration of rehearsal mechanisms in the context of computational models of serial recall revealed some principled limitations of rehearsal (Lewandowsky & Oberauer, 2015), and a series of experiments found that when cumulative rehearsal was experimentally increased through instruction, it had no beneficial effect on memory (Souza & Oberauer, 2018).…”

No Evidence That Articulatory Rehearsal Improves Complex Span Performance

“…This replicates and extends to complex span previous reports of a positive correlation between serial-recall performance and the average length of cumulative rehearsal (see also . These correlations are compatible with the notion that cumulative rehearsal plays a beneficial role for serial recall, either by counteracting time-based decay (Baddeley, Thomson, & Buchanan, 1975;Camos et al, 2009), or by generating stronger or more robust memory representations than are produced by initial encoding (Nishiyama & Ukita, 2013;Palmer & Ornstein, 1971;Tan & Ward, 2000). The correlations, however, are equally compatible with the assumption that good memory is a prerequisite for successful cumulative rehearsal.…”

Does articulatory rehearsal help immediate serial recall?

“…The cumulative instruction improved accuracy in a probed recall test, particularly for items from the beginning of the list, and this benefit survived a 15 s distraction period. In a similar vein, a recent study by Nishiyama and Ukita (2013) showed a rehearsal benefit for the maintenance of non-words for a free recall test. In this study, rehearsing items cumulatively, or even fixed rehearsals, improved performance compared to a no-rehearsal control condition.…”

“…Given prior reports that cumulative rehearsal is correlated with better memory (Nishiyama & Ukita, 2013;Palmer & Ornstein, 1971;Tan & Ward, 2008), we chose this rehearsal strategy as the main target of our manipulation. To assess whether this rehearsal instruction improves memory, we have to select a performance baseline.…”