Phonological short-term memory and new word learning in children.

Abstract

Sixty-five 5-year old children participated in 4 experimental tasks of word learning that varied systematically in the amounts of phonological and nonphonological learning required. Measures of the children's performances on 2 measures of phonological memory (digit span and nonword repetition), vocabulary knowledge, and nonverbal ability were also obtained. Learning of the sound structures of new words was significantly, and to some degree independently, associated with aspects of both phonological memory skill and vocabulary knowledge. Learning of pairs of familiar words was linked with current vocabulary knowledge, although not with phonological memory scores. The findings suggest that both existing lexical knowledge and phonological short-term memory play significant roles in the long-term learning of the sounds of new words. The study also provides evidence of both shared and distinct processes contributing to nonword repetition and digit span tasks.

Enhancing the learning of new words using an errorless learning procedure: Evidence from typical adults

“…Thus, neuropsychological patients with a selective impairment in verbal shortterm memory show deficits in novel-word learning (e.g., Bormann, Seyboth, Umarova, & Weiller, 2015). Furthermore, verbal short-term memory is a significant predictor of children's vocabulary (e.g., Gathercole, Willis, Emslie, & Baddeley, 1992), as well as their ability to learn novel-words (e.g., Gathercole, Hitch, Service, & Martin, 1997). The verbal short-term store has been conceptualised as a system whose function is to hold new phonological sequences while more stable lexical representations are created in long-term memory (c.f., Baddeley et al, 1998).…”

“…Given that working memory is implicated in both language processing (c.f., Gathercole et al, 1997) and executive control (Engle, 2002), there are good grounds to speculate that working memory would be enhanced in bilinguals. Bilinguals' ability to focus processing on one language while avoiding interference from the other language is heavily dependent on working memory (see Thorn & Gathercole, 1999), and lifelong use of working memory resources may lead to enhanced working memory capacity.…”

“…In light of this, as well as the growing body of evidence (c.f., e.g., Kaushanskaya & Marian, 2009a, b;Poepsel, & Weiss, 2016;Singh, et al, 2017), we predicted a bilingual advantage in novel-word learning. Moreover, given the (1) documented relationship between executive control and working memory (c.f., Engle, 2002); (2) that working memory is implicated in vocabulary development and novel-word learning (e.g., Gathercole et al, 1997); (3) that optimal learning is contingent on a set of sophisticated system that implicitly facilitates the simultaneous monitoring of feedback from the environment, updating a task-appropriate representation and behavioural control -skills that correspond to working memory and attention (c.f., Duijvenvoorde et al, 2013); and (4) that learning and attentional control are considered as complementary functions (c.f., Abrahamse, et al, 2016), we anticipated that verbal working memory and attention would be concurrent predictors of novel-word learning. Further, we predicted that these relationships would differ between language groups (i.e., attention would be a unique significant predictor in bilinguals, but not monolinguals, due to their enhanced attentional control).…”

A model linking immediate serial recall, the Hebb repetition effect and the learning of phonological word forms

“…In a number of papers (e.g. Gathercole & Baddeley 1989;Brown & Hulme 1996;Gathercole et al 1997Gathercole et al , 1999Gupta & MacWhinney 1997;Baddeley et al 1998;Gupta 2003;Majerus et al 2006), the case was made that there was a tight relationship between the ability to perform ISR and the ability to learn the phonological forms of newly presented words. We shall refer to this as the phonological word-form learning (PWFL) hypothesis.…”

Working memory mediates the effects of gestational age at birth on expressive language development in children.

“…These data suggest that, while a gross effect of temporary memory upon language has been widely demonstrated (Baddeley, 2003;Baddeley, Gathercole & Papagno, 1998;Gathercole, Hitch, Service, & Martin, 1997), specific pathways might as well exist (Acheson, Hamidi, Binder, & Postle, 2011;Buchsbaum & D'Esposito, 2008;Jackson, Leitao, & Claessen, 2016).…”