Disruption of verbal STM by irrelevant speech, articulatory suppression, and manual tapping: do they have a common source?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Disruption of verbal STM by irrelevant speech, articulatory suppression, and manual tapping: do they have a common source?

AU - Larsen, Janet D

AU - Baddeley, Alan

PY - 2003

Y1 - 2003

N2 - Under appropriate conditions, immediate serial verbal recall is impaired by irrelevant speech, articulatory suppression, and syncopated tapping. Interpretation of these variables in terms of the phonological loop component of working memory assumes separate phonological storage and articulatory rehearsal processes. In contrast, the Object-Oriented Episodic Record (O-OER) of Jones and the feature theory of Neath interpret these and other phenomena in terms of a unitary multimodal system. Three experiments investigate these disrupting tasks, with each experiment emphasizing one parameter. In each case, recall of phonologically similar and dissimilar letter sequences is compared as a marker of the presence or absence of phonological coding. In Experiment 1, subjects heard or articulated a single item, or tapped a single key at equal intervals. Only articulatory suppression impaired performance; it also abolished the effects of phonological similarity. Experiment 2 was identical, except that items were heard, or generated in a syncopated rhythm. Both suppression and tapping impaired performance to an equivalent extent and obliterated the effect of phonological similarity. Syncopated irrelevant speech caused a modest but significant impairment in performance. Experiment 3 was identical to Experiment 1, except that six tokens were used. Irrelevant speech and tapping had a clear impact on recall, but neither removed the phonological similarity effect. Again articulatory suppression had a major impact on performance and removed the effect of phonological similarity. We conclude that the pattern of results readily fits the phonological loop hypothesis, provided one accepts Saitos proposal that generating syncopated sequences uses common processes with speech production. It is not clear how the results can be explained by either the O-OER or the feature hypothesis.

AB - Under appropriate conditions, immediate serial verbal recall is impaired by irrelevant speech, articulatory suppression, and syncopated tapping. Interpretation of these variables in terms of the phonological loop component of working memory assumes separate phonological storage and articulatory rehearsal processes. In contrast, the Object-Oriented Episodic Record (O-OER) of Jones and the feature theory of Neath interpret these and other phenomena in terms of a unitary multimodal system. Three experiments investigate these disrupting tasks, with each experiment emphasizing one parameter. In each case, recall of phonologically similar and dissimilar letter sequences is compared as a marker of the presence or absence of phonological coding. In Experiment 1, subjects heard or articulated a single item, or tapped a single key at equal intervals. Only articulatory suppression impaired performance; it also abolished the effects of phonological similarity. Experiment 2 was identical, except that items were heard, or generated in a syncopated rhythm. Both suppression and tapping impaired performance to an equivalent extent and obliterated the effect of phonological similarity. Syncopated irrelevant speech caused a modest but significant impairment in performance. Experiment 3 was identical to Experiment 1, except that six tokens were used. Irrelevant speech and tapping had a clear impact on recall, but neither removed the phonological similarity effect. Again articulatory suppression had a major impact on performance and removed the effect of phonological similarity. We conclude that the pattern of results readily fits the phonological loop hypothesis, provided one accepts Saitos proposal that generating syncopated sequences uses common processes with speech production. It is not clear how the results can be explained by either the O-OER or the feature hypothesis.

KW - Acoustic Stimulation

KW - Adult

KW - Analysis of Variance

KW - Auditory Perception

KW - Cues

KW - Humans

KW - Memory, Short-Term

KW - Mental Recall

KW - Movement

KW - Pattern Recognition, Visual

KW - Phonetics

KW - Speech

KW - Students

KW - Task Performance and Analysis

KW - Verbal Behavior

U2 - 10.1080/02724980244000765

DO - 10.1080/02724980244000765

M3 - Article

C2 - 14578082

SN - 0272-4987

VL - 56

SP - 1249

EP - 1268

JO - The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology

JF - The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology

IS - 8

ER -