Semantic and phonological contributions to short-term repetition and long-term cued sentence recall

Abstract

The function of verbal short-term memory is supported not only by the phonological loop, but also by semantic resources that may operate on both short and long time scales. Elucidation of the neural underpinnings of these mechanisms requires effective behavioral manipulations that can selectively engage them. We developed a novel cued sentence recall paradigm to assess the effects of two factors on sentence recall accuracy at short-term and long-term stages. Participants initially repeated auditory sentences immediately following a 14-s retention period. After this task was complete, long-term memory for each sentence was probed by a two-word recall cue. The sentences were either concrete (high imageability) or abstract (low imageability), and the initial 14-s retention period was filled with either an undemanding finger-tapping task or a more engaging articulatory suppression task (Exp. 1, counting backward by threes; Exp. 2, repeating a foursyllable nonword). Recall was always better for the concrete sentences. Articulatory suppression reduced accuracy in short-term recall, especially for abstract sentences, but the sentences initially recalled following articulatory suppression were retained better at the subsequent cued-recall test, suggesting that the engagement of semantic mechanisms for short-term retention promoted encoding of the sentence meaning into long-term memory. These results provide a basis for using sentence imageability and subsequent memory performance as probes of semantic engagement in short-term memory for sentences.

Neurocognitive basis of repetition deficits in primary progressive aphasia

“…Generally, these results demonstrate that repetition ability is affected when the sequence of words is long and has no real meaning. Thus, both phonological and semantic (meaning) information contribute to sentence recall performance (see Meltzer et al, 2016 on the semantic contribution to short- and long-term sentence recall). Although researchers have studied the ability of patients with PPA to repeat words and sentences, none have systematically varied length and meaningfulness of stimuli.…”

Primary progressive aphasia in Italian and English: a cross-linguistic cohort study

“…Further, the discrepancy in spoken word comprehension between cohorts in our study contrasts with their very similar naming performance (see Table 2), arguing for an auditory rather than a primary semantic basis. It is further possible that any phonological input deficit is amplified by concomitantly more marked deficits of phonological production in English-speaking patients with nfvPPA and lvPPA, via impaired lexical predictive processing 40,41 .…”

التكرار اللفظي في البرمجة اللغوية العصبية مع إشارة خاصة إلى الخطابات السياسية للقادة المصريين والأمريكيين

“…The results revealed that Al-Sisi employed semantic repetition more than any other leader. Because the use of the semantic repetition has an explicit effect on the short term memory of the hearers (Meltzer et al, 2016), Al-Sisi might have tried to influence the public by varying the use of word relations that affect the short term memory of the audience. The most common used word relations in Al-Sisi's speech were binomials, synonyms and hyponyms.…”