Biomedical subjects

Arild Lian

Publications and source records attributed to Arild Lian.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Why does the phonological similarity effect reverse with nonwords?

The detrimental phonological similarity effect (PSE), a robust finding in serial recall of words, sometimes reverses with nonwords. The current study tested the hypothesis that nonwords benefit from phonological similarity because they are harder to retrieve. In two experiments serial recall and serial reconstruction of visually presented words and nonwords were compared. Phonological similarity is known to have a positive effect on item memory and a negative effect on position accuracy in serial recall, and the demands on item retrieval were greatly reduced in the latter task. PSE occurred for words in both tasks and was reversed for nonwords in serial recall, but not in serial reconstruction-a new finding in the literature. The following conclusions can be made: (1) the detrimental PSE on order retrieval occurs irrespective of lexicality, in accordance with prominent short-term memory models; and (2), the positive PSE on item retrieval is crucially affected by lexicality, a finding less well explained by the existing models.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Retrieval independence between parts and wholes in successive recognition tasks.

Participants studied AB word pairs and completed three recognition tests. In one recognition test each A word was presented with two distractors that did not appear on the study list. In another recognition test each B word was presented with two distractors that did not appear on the study list. In a third recognition test an AB target was presented with two distractors composed of words not on the study list. Six different groups of participants each performed the recognition tests in a different order, so that all possible orders were tested. Recognition of the A, B, and AB targets for a given study pair were independent of each other when single-word recognition preceded double-word recognition. There was almost complete independence in the reverse order. Even when recognition judgements were restricted to those for which the participants were most confident, there was independence of recognition among the three tests. A pair recognition test served as an additional study trial for the individual words; however, the reverse was not the case. All of these results were predicted by a single three-parameter mathematical model derived from the hypothesis that single-word and double-word targets had independent representations in memory.

Humans↗

PubMed2005

Modulating the phonological similarity effect: the contribution of interlist similarity and lexicality.

The classical phonological similarity effect (PSE) was studied with words and nonwords in two immediate serial recall (ISR) tasks. The relative contributions of intralist and interlist interference were compared, and differential effects on item and order memory were observed. PSE occurred with words and was reversed with nonwords. In addition, PSE was modulated by interlist similarity, which enhanced recall of rhyme items and impaired recall of distinct items. Finally, interlist similarity reduced item recall of words, whereas it improved serial recall of nonwords. The latter finding rules out the hypothesis that the reverse PSE for nonwords is due to interlist interference. It is concluded that two opposing effects of phonological intralist similarity cause the interaction between PSE and lexicality in ISR. With words, the positive effect on item recall is usually masked by a much more disruptive effect on position accuracy. With nonwords, however, the positive effect often masks the negative one. These findings are discussed in relation to current models of verbal short-term memory.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Opposing effects of phonological similarity on item and order memory of words and nonwords in the serial recall task.

This study shows that the classical phonological similarity effect (PSE) in immediate serial recall is critically affected by the lexicality of list items, the type of phonological similarity involved, and the scoring procedure. PSE was present in the serial recall score when phonologically distinct words were compared to words that share the middle vowel and end consonant (rhyming lists). PSE was absent in the serial recall score when phonologically distinct words were compared to words that share the initial and final consonants (consonant frame lists). There was a reversal of PSE in serial recall of nonwords when comparing distinct lists to both types of similar lists. Recall accuracy on the other hand was higher for distinct lists regardless of lexicality. Item errors dominated in relation to order errors in the case of nonwords, whereas order errors dominated in relation to item errors in the case of words. Furthermore, order errors were more common for phonologically similar lists, whereas item errors were more common for phonologically distinct lists. This may be the result of intra-list and inter-list interference, respectively. The dominance of the former error type may cause a classical PSE, whereas the dominance of the latter error type may cause a reversal of PSE. Finally, an item identification task yielded no evidence of an association between intra-list interference and discriminability of items in a list.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Advantages and disadvantages of phonological similarity in serial recall and serial recognition of nonwords.

The phonological similarity effect (PSE) was studied with lists of nonwords in one task of serial recall and one task of serial recognition. PSE was critically affected by the scoring procedure and the type of phonological similarity involved, and the effect diverged in several ways from the findings of previous studies on words. PSE was absent in serial recall, regardless of scoring procedure, when phonologically similar items that shared the midvowel were compared with phonologically distinct items. PSE was reversed when serial recall and item recall scores of rhyme items and consonant frame items were compared with distinct items, but it was present in the position accuracy score of rhyme lists. In serial recognition, PSE was absent when rhyme lists were compared with distinct lists. Recognition was better for consonant frame lists than for rhyme lists, and there was a marginally significant reversal of PSE when consonant frame lists were compared with distinct lists. In the view of Fallon, Groves, and Tehan's (1999) study and the present study, rhyming improves item recall and serial recall but diminishes position accuracy, regardless of lexicality. But consonant frame lists with differing midvowels have higher item recall, serial recall, and position accuracy scores than do rhyme lists.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Detection of repeated trigrams: evidence of all-or-none learning.

Two experiments investigated trigram detection in a continuous recognition task. In Experiment 1 consonant trigrams were presented visually, one at a time, with occasional repetition of a trigram after an interval of 0, 2, 4, 8, or 16 other trigrams. Subjects were told to respond with a button press every time they saw a repeated trigram. If a subject responded to a repeated trigram, it was not repeated again. However, if a subject did not respond to a repeated trigram, it was repeated again at the same interval for up to 3 repetitions. For all intervals greater than 0, the probability of noticing a repeated trigram did not increase with the number of repetitions. In Experiment 2 meaningless shape trigrams were presented, and occasionally a trigram was repeated after an interval of 0, 1, or 2 trigrams. For both intervals greater than 0, the probability of noticing a repeated trigram did not increase with the number of repetitions. The results demonstrate that a repeated input does not necessarily leave a permanent trace in memory.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Retrieval independence in successive recognition tasks.

In three experiments participants studied AB word pairs and completed two recognition tests. In the first recognition test, which was included in all three experiments, the B word had to be discriminated from two distractors that did not appear on the study list. In Experiment 1, in the second recognition test, an AB target was compared with distractors composed of words not on the study list. In Experiment 2, in the second recognition test, an AB target had to be discriminated from two other pairs that were created by randomly re-pairing A and B words that appeared on the study list. In Experiment 3, on the second recognition test, words from the study list were systematically re-paired to form distractors that contained either the same A term or the same B term as the target pair. Recognition of the B word on the first test was always at least partly independent of recognition of the AB pair on the second test. Even when recognition judgements were restricted to those for which the participants were most confident, all experiments demonstrated significant retrieval independence between the two tests.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

A re-evaluation of the phonological similarity effect in adults' short-term memory of words and nonwords.

The phonological similarity effect (PSE) was studied in two tasks of serial recall, in one task of serial recognition and one item identification task. PSE occurred only in the former three tasks involving memory of order when study items were words and nonwords with an associative connectedness to long-term memory. Nonwords that, according to a reaction time assessment of associative value, were less well connected to long-term memory mechanisms, were not sensitive to phonological similarity. These results are discussed in relation to contemporary models of short-term memory that explain the PSE as a result of confusions of items that are similarly encoded in a phonological layer. This layer is identified as a higher-level phonological space that is accessed by words and nonwords of high associative value and not by nonwords of low associative value.

Adult↗