Item length, acoustic similarity, and natural language mediation as variables in short-term memory.

Adams, Jack A.; Thorsheim, Howard I.; McIntyre, John S.

doi:10.1037/h0027140

Cited by 21 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Experiment I was sensitive enough only to detect the increase in auditory-and-visual confusion errors (which would tend to occur no matter which of the preceding strategies the subject was using). Evidence indicating use of an auditory store is sometimes found in this paradigm (Shankweiler, Liberman, Mark, Fowler, & Fisher, 1979) and sometimes not (Adams, Thorsheim, & McIntyre, 1969).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It has been noted several times that immediate ordered recall is better for a simultaneous visual presentation than for a sequential visual presentation (Crowder, 1966;Mackworth, 1962;Marcer, 1967). Two reasons for this have been suggested: (1) Having all the stimuli available at the same time provides more opportunity for organizing the stimuli into meaningful chunks (Adams et al, 1969;Marcer, 1967); and (2) the subject can allot attention to the stimuli in the most advantageous fashion (Crowder, 1966). These two factors probably playa role in increasing recall of a simultaneous presentation, but neither would explain why a simultaneous presentation produces more visual confusion errors and fewer auditory confusion errors than a sequential presentation.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Testing visual short-term memory: Simultaneous versus sequential presentations

Frick

1985

Mem Cogn

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Two experiments testing immediate ordered recall are presented; in these experiments, subjects engaged in repetitive speech ("articulatory suppression") during a visual presentation in order to prevent auditory recoding of the stimuli. In both experiments, a simultaneous presentation produced results that suggested the use of visual short-term memory, whereas a sequential presentation did not. In Experiment 1, visual confusion errors occurred more often than would be expected by chance for a simultaneous presentation but not for a sequential presentation. In Experiment 2, recall from visual short-term memory was expected to suffer more when subjects wrote a prefix than when they spoke a prefix; this effect occurred for a simultaneous presentation but not for a sequential presentation. These results suggest that existence of a visual shortterm store that retains a simultaneous presentation but not a sequential presentation.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing visual short-term memory: Simultaneous versus sequential presentations

Frick

1985

Mem Cogn

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“…Depending on whether list words and distractors are preferentially encoded phonologically or semantically, phonological or semantic similarity should play the dominant role. Previous research has shown that immediate serial recall of verbal material rests predominantly on phonological memory traces, but that with filled delays of several seconds, phonological similarity effects tend to decline and semantic features become more important (Adams, Thorsheim, & McIntyre, 1969;Baddeley & Ecob, 1970). The complex span paradigm involves filled delays following each memory item; therefore, it could be that at the time of recall, semantic representations predominate over phonological ones.…”

Section: Overview Of Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interference between storage and processing in working memory: Feature overwriting, not similarity-based competition

Oberauer

2009

Memory & Cognition

107

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Eight experiments with the complex span paradigm are presented to investigate why concurrent processing disrupts short-term retention. Increasing the pace of the processing task led to worse recall, supporting the hypothesis that the processing task distracts attention from maintenance operations. Neither phonological nor semantic similarity between memory items and processing-task material impaired memory. In contrast, the degree of phonological overlap between memory items and processing-task material affected recall negatively, supporting feature overwriting as one source of interference in the complex span paradigm. When compared directly, phonological overlap impaired memory, but similarity had a beneficial effect. These findings rule out response competition or confusion as a mechanism of interference between storage and processing.

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“…Predictable sequences that conform to S's language habits will be encoded more easily and into fewer chunks, and are hence more likely to be recalled (Miller, 1956). While such coding will be simplest with predictable material, recent failures to observe acoustic similarity effects (Adams, Thorsheim, & Mcintire, 1969;Laverty & Turvey, 1970) suggest that it may also occur with consonant sequences, given appropriate conditions. Such results certainly indicate that Ss are not coding in terms of letter names; they do not, however, mean that Psychon.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, all the letters in each sequence were presented simultaneously. a procedure that recent work suggests may minimize acoustic confusability effects (Adams, Thorsheim, & McIntire, 1969;Laverty & Turvey, 1970). The following experiment, therefore, uses the teclmique that seems most likely to favor acoustic coding, sequential auditory presentation, and studies the relationship between acoustic confusability, predictability, and probability of recall of letter sequences of varying approximation to English.…”

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confidence: 99%

Language habits, acoustic confusability, and immediate memory for redundant letter sequences

Baddeley

1971

Psychon Sci

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Immediate memory was tested for sequences of 7, 8, 9, or 10 auditorily presented letters which comprised either words or zero-, first-, second-, or third-order approximations to English words. At all lengths, recall probability correlated highly with letter sequence predictability (.58-.78) but was unrelated to acoustic confusabilitv. It is suggested that coding was still phonemic but involved speech sounds comprising 'several letters rather than letter names.Short-term memory for letter sequences is influenced by two major variables, predictability and acoustic confusability. Predictability is a measure of the closeness with which a letter sequence approximates to the structure of English, and has been shown to correlate highly with probability of recalling approximations to English words (Baddeley, 1964a), and somewhat less highly with the recall of sequentially presented consonant sequences (Baddeley, Conrad, & Hull, 1965). A series of studies have shown a high correlation between probability of recalling a visually presented consonant sequence and its acoustic confusability, as measured by the probability of mishearing the constituent letters when presented in noise (Conrad, 1962;Conrad & Hull, 1964). A later study by Conrad, Freeman, & Hull (1965) directly compared the contributions of predictability and acoustic confusability to the recall of sequences of six random consonants and concluded that the main determinant of recall probability in this situation was acoustic confusability, with predictability playing a relatively minor role. Kintsch (1970, p.191) has subsequently concluded, on the basis of this one very limited study, that "Language f actors appear to be ineffective in short-term memory, or at least are overridden in importance by acoustic confusions." Such a conclusion is clearly at variance with the results of Baddeley (1964a , 1970). The following experiment, therefore, uses the teclmique that seems most likely to favor acoustic coding, sequential auditory presentation, and studies the relationship between acoustic confusability, predictability, and probability of recall of letter sequences of varying approximation to English. MATERIAL The technique described by Miller, Bruner, & Postman (1954) was used to generate eight sequences of 7, 8,9, and 10 letters of zero-, first-, second-, and third-order approximation to English. These were based on the tables of letter frequency in written English compiled by Baddeley, Conrad, & Thomson (1960). In addition, four sets of eight words (one set each of length 7,8,9, and 10 letters) were selected at random from the Thorndike-Lorge list, making a total of 40 sequences of each length. PROCEDURE A separate group of 20 enlisted men was tested at each of the four sequence lengths. Letters were read out at a rate of one per second, and Ss were allowed 2 sec per letter to recall as much of the sequence as possible. Ss were instructed to write each letter in the appropriate serial pOSition on a prepared answer sheet. They were familiarized with the material t...

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Item length, acoustic similarity, and natural language mediation as variables in short-term memory.

Cited by 21 publications

References 19 publications

Testing visual short-term memory: Simultaneous versus sequential presentations

Testing visual short-term memory: Simultaneous versus sequential presentations

Interference between storage and processing in working memory: Feature overwriting, not similarity-based competition

Language habits, acoustic confusability, and immediate memory for redundant letter sequences

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