Word-frequency and phonological-neighborhood effects on verbal short-term memory.

Full Abstract

Immediate memory span and maximal articulation rate were assessed for word sets differing in frequency, word-neighborhood size, and average word-neighborhood frequency. Memory span was greater for high- than low-frequency words, greater for words from large than small phonological neighborhoods, and greater for words from high- than low-frequency phonological neighborhoods. Maximal articulation rate was also facilitated by word frequency, phonological-neighborhood size, and neighborhood frequency. In a final study all 3 lexical variables were found to influence the recall outcome for individual words. These effects of phonological-word neighborhood on memory performance suggest that phonological information in long-term memory plays an active role in recall in short-term-memory tasks, and they present a challenge to current theories of short-term memory.

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Author information

Author/s: Roodenrys, Steven (S); Hulme, Charles (C); Lethbridge, Alistair (A); Hinton, Melinda (M); Nimmo, Lisa M (LM);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. steven_roodenrys@uow.edu.au

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition (J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Nov; vol 28 (issue 6) : pp 1019-34

Dates: Created 2002/11/26; Completed 2003/03/27; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 12450329, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Attention
Female
Humans
Male
Memory, Short-Term

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