Memory for Related and Unrelated Words: Further Evidence on the Influence of Semantic Factors in Immediate Serial Recall

Abstract

A number of recent studies have explored the role of long-term memory factors in memory span tasks. The effects of lexicality, frequency, imageability, and word class have been investigated. The work reported in this paper examined the effect of semantic organization on the recall of short lists of words. Specifically, the influence of semantic category on immediate serial recall and the interaction of this variable with articulatory suppression was investigated in three experiments. Experiment 1 compared immediate serial recall performance when lists comprising items from the same semantic category were used (homogeneous condition) with a situation where lists held items from different semantic categories. Experiment 2 examined the same conditions with and without articulatory suppression during item presentation, and Experiment 3 reproduced these conditions with suppression occurring throughout presentation and recall. Results of all three experiments showed a clear advantage for the homogeneous condition. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that the homogeneous category advantage did not depend on the articulatory loop. Furthermore, error analysis indicated that this effect was mainly attributable to better item information recall for the homogeneous condition. These results are interpreted as reflecting a long-term memory contribution to the recall stage of immediate serial recall tasks.

Verbal short-term memory reflects the organization of long-term memory: Further evidence from short-term memory for emotional words

“…The pattern of effects we observed is highly consistent with the hypothesis of increased semantic LTM support for recall of emotional words: the advantage of recall for emotional words in pure and mixed lists was restricted to item recall, in line with the impact of other psycholinguistic effects on STM recall (word frequency, semantic relatedness; Nairne & Kelley, 2004;Poirier & Saint Aubin, 1995;Saint-Aubin & Poirier, 1999). The question that arises here is the specific nature of increased semantic LTM support for emotional words.…”

“…Walker and Hulme (1999) assessed word concreteness effects, by comparing ISR for high imageability versus low imageability words, observing a small but significant advantage for recall of high imageability words, suggesting that the richer semantic content defining high imageable words provides stronger semantic support during word recall in STM tasks (Walker & Hulme, 1999; see also Majerus & Van der Linden, 2003). Poirier and Saint-Aubin (Poirier & Saint-Aubin, 1995; SaintAubin & Poirier, 1999) showed that word lists composed of semantically related words yield higher recall performance than words lists containing semantically unrelated words, the so-called semantic relatedness effect. Importantly, the studies by Poirier and Saint-Aubin show that semantic LTM support does not benefit all aspects of STM recall.…”

Creating proactive interference in immediate recall: Building a DOG from a DART, a mop, and a FIG

“…At the empirical level, word frequency effects in span (Tehan & Humphreys, 1988;Watkins, 1977) could well stem from semantic features facilitating the deblurring process. Poirier and Saint-Aubin's (1995) demonstration of the facilitative effects oftaxonomic similarity on span is a more obvious example of semantic features affecting immediate recall. In any event, we think that a systematic examination of semantic and episodic longterm effects in serial recall is long over due.…”

tDCS to temporoparietal cortex during familiarisation enhances the subsequent phonological coherence of nonwords in immediate serial recall

“…This comparison establishes whether limited exposure to phonological forms 24 hours earlier is sufficient to yield better (i.e., more phonologically coherent) ISR performance. This is an important addition to the literature since previous studies comparing words and nonwords have only established a recall advantage for well-established phonological-lexical representations that have been acquired over long periods of time, and which, in the case of real words, may further benefit from independent support from those words' corresponding semantic representations (Bourassa & Besner, 1994;Patterson et al, 1994;Poirier & Saint-Aubin, 1995;Knott & Patterson, 1997;Saint-Aubin & Poirier, 1999;Walker & Hulme, 1999;Jefferies, Jones, Bateman, & Lambon Ralph, 2005;Hoffman et al, 2009). …”