Phonological Similarity Effect in Complex Span Task
Category
Journal Article
Authors
Camos, V., Mora, G., Barrouillet, P.
Year
2013
Title
Phonological Similarity Effect in Complex Span Task
Journal / book / conference
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
Abstract
The aim of our study was to test the hypothesis that two systems are involved in verbal working memory, one specifically dedicated to the maintenance of phonological representations through verbal rehearsal while the other would maintain multimodal representations through attentional refreshing. This theoretical framework predicts that
phonologically-related phenomena such as the phonological similarity effect (PSE) should occur when the domain-specific system is involved in maintenance, but should disappear when concurrent articulation hinders its use. Impeding maintenance in the domain-general
system by a concurrent attentional demand should impair recall performance without affecting PSE. In three experiments, we manipulated the concurrent articulation and the attentional
demand induced by the processing component of complex span tasks in which participants had to maintain lists of either similar or dissimilar words. Confirming our predictions, PSE affected recall performance in complex span tasks. Although both the attentional demand and the articulatory requirement of the concurrent task impaired recall, only the induction of an articulatory suppression during maintenance made the PSE disappear. These results suggest a duality in the systems devoted to verbal maintenance in the short term, constraining models of working memory.
Keywords
Working Memory, Phonological Similarity, Complex Span Task, Rehearsal, TBRS model