Memory span for Arabic numerals and digit words in Japanese kanji in deaf signers

Abstract

According to the theory of working memory, the "phonological loop" is a slave system that stores a limited number of sounds for a short period of time. The question of how this system works for deaf people reading a logographic script, kanji, was investigated. We measured the memory span of a sample of Japanese hearing and deaf participants. Hearing subjects were tested in Japanese and deaf subjects in sign language. Memory span was assessed in control and articulatory suppression conditions. In the control condition, subjects were required to recall various item sequences as quickly and accurately as possible. In the articulatory suppression condition, the hearing subjects articulated the phrase no-no, and the deaf subjects expressed a pseudosign, while viewing the stimuli. Results showed that the memory span of the deaf for Japanese kanji was similar to that of their hearing peers. This finding conflicts with previous research which suggested that for users of English, the deaf display consistently shorter memory spans than do their hearing counterparts. In addition, we discovered that in contrast to their hearing colleagues, the deaf Japanese subjects were relatively immune to expected articulatory suppression effects. This finding raises the possibility that working memory coding processes are not universal.

Factors Related to Reading Span Test Results for Hearing-Impaired Students

“…is is similar to the research ndings of Flaherty and Moran (2001), who pointed out that hearingimpaired children do not use the phonological loop as much as normal-hearing children, instead using visual information in linguistic working memory tasks. In addition, this study did not show a connection between Reading Span Test scores and visuospatial sketchpad capability, suggesting that skills in the storage and processing of visual information do not promote memory of the target word under this experimental condition.…”

“…Flaherty and Moran (2001) also conducted a study using kanji memory tasks. Based on results showing no greater articulatory suppression e ect compared to students with normal hearing, the study suggested that hearing-impaired students may use visual information, applying the phonological loop less than students with normal hearing.…”

“…No correlation was found between phonological loop and Reading Span Test scores in research with people with normal hearing, but an investigation among hearingimpaired people seems warranted, as di erences from people with normal hearing in the function of the phonological loop are evident, as described above. Furthermore, as the results of Flaherty and Moran (2001) suggest, hearing-impaired individuals may visually encode target words in the Reading Span Test, so this study also examined the visuospatial sketchpad as a subsystem. By clarifying these points, analysis of reading problems of hearingimpaired students in the process of storage and management of textual information becomes possible, making it possible to obtain data o ering suggestions for methods of education.…”

Visual and phonological similarity effects in verbal immediate serial recall: A test with kanji materials

“…It has been already established that articulatory suppression in which participants are required to utter a task-irrelevant sound repeatedly during performing the target cognitive task has a strong effect on immediate serial recall performance (see, Baddeley, 1997). We expect that articulatory suppression would reduce immediate serial memory performance of kanji (see, Flaherty & Moran, 2001) and that it would remove the effect of phonological similarity: Many previous studies have shown that articulatory suppression removes the phonological similarity effect when verbal memory materials are presented visually (e.g., Baddeley et al, 1984;Jones, Macken, & Nicholls, 2004;Murray, 1968 in English;Saito, 1997 in Japanese participants).…”

Chinese deaf adolescents’ free recall of taxonomic, slot‐filler, and thematic categories

“…Chinese characters’ rich spatial information should be helpful for deaf individuals to learn the written forms. For example, Japanese deaf individuals’ memory span for Japanese kanji was similar to that of their hearing counterparts (Flaherty & Moran, 2001). However, the deaf students might have to make extra efforts to establish the relations between the Pinyin forms and the corresponding characters for the following reasons: (1) deaf individuals were extremely difficult to develop a phonological awareness that helps their mainstream language learning (see Li & Zhang, 2006, for a review); (2) the written forms of Chinese characters are largely separated from their pronunciations; (3) the number of Chinese characters far exceeds the number of pronunciation forms in Pinyin, which results in too many characters having the same pronunciation.…”