Nonword repetition and serial recall: Equivalent measures of verbal short-term memory?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Nonword repetition and serial recall: Equivalent measures of verbal short-term memory?

AU - Archibald, Lisa M. D.

AU - Gathercole, Susan E.

PY - 2007/10

Y1 - 2007/10

N2 - Evidence that the abilities to repeat nonwords and to learn language are very closely related to one another has led to widespread interest in the cognitive processes underlying nonword repetition. One suggestion is that nonword repetition is a relatively pure measure of phonological short-term memory closely associated with other measures of short-term memory such as serial recall. The present study compared serial recall of lists of monosyllabic nonwords and repetition of matched phonological forms presented as a multisyllabic nonword in typically developing school-age children. Results revealed that whereas both serial recall and nonword repetition responses showed classic short-term memory characteristics such as a serial position curve and decreasing accuracy with increasing sequence length, nonword repetition was associated with more accurate repetition overall and errors that were more closely matched to the target. Consonants benefited from nonword repetition to a greater extent than vowels. These findings indicate that factors in addition to short-term memory support retention in nonword repetition. It is suggested that coarticulatory and prosodic cues may play important roles in the recall of multisyllabic phonological forms.

AB - Evidence that the abilities to repeat nonwords and to learn language are very closely related to one another has led to widespread interest in the cognitive processes underlying nonword repetition. One suggestion is that nonword repetition is a relatively pure measure of phonological short-term memory closely associated with other measures of short-term memory such as serial recall. The present study compared serial recall of lists of monosyllabic nonwords and repetition of matched phonological forms presented as a multisyllabic nonword in typically developing school-age children. Results revealed that whereas both serial recall and nonword repetition responses showed classic short-term memory characteristics such as a serial position curve and decreasing accuracy with increasing sequence length, nonword repetition was associated with more accurate repetition overall and errors that were more closely matched to the target. Consonants benefited from nonword repetition to a greater extent than vowels. These findings indicate that factors in addition to short-term memory support retention in nonword repetition. It is suggested that coarticulatory and prosodic cues may play important roles in the recall of multisyllabic phonological forms.

KW - PHONOLOGICAL MEMORY

KW - LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT

KW - WORKING-MEMORY

KW - NETWORK MODEL

KW - CHILDREN

KW - WORD

KW - VOCABULARY

KW - SPEECH

KW - ORDER

KW - COARTICULATION

U2 - 10.1017/S0142716407070324

DO - 10.1017/S0142716407070324

M3 - Article

SN - 0142-7164

VL - 28

SP - 587

EP - 606

JO - Applied psycholinguistics

JF - Applied psycholinguistics

IS - 4

ER -