Abstracts 2005 - The Psychonomic Society

Papers 149–154 Saturday Morning
ficult to make empirically. We show how a multiple-target search
methodology that is analyzed using sequential sampling models can
effectively discriminate between capacity-limited parallel search and
truly serial search. We find that there are, at most, two stimulus classes
that require serial inspection of targets and distractors.
STM and Language Processing
Dominion Ballroom, Saturday Morning, 8:00–10:00
Chaired by Elisabet M. Service
University of Helsinki and Dalhousie University
8:00–8:15 (149)
Phonological Short-Term Memory Span and the Quality of Phonological
Traces. ELISABET M. SERVICE, University of Helsinki and
Dalhousie University, & SINI E. MAURY & EMILIA L. LUOTONIEMI,
University of Helsinki—A correlation between vocabulary learning
and STM performance (e.g., digit span, nonword repetition) has been
explained by assuming that phonological WM modulates what gets
transferred to LTM. Our results suggest a different explanation. Two
groups with relatively good versus poor nonword span were tested. In
Experiment 1, lists of three CVCVCV nonwords constructed from a
pool of 12 stimuli were presented to participants for immediate serial
recall. In a surprise test after the STM task, participants were given
free recall, cued recall, and recognition tests for the nonwords in the
stimulus pool. The good group remembered more in all tests. In Experiment
2, experience of correct output was controlled by presenting
span + 1 lists. Despite equal STM, the good group again outperformed
the poor group in memory for the stimulus pool items. We suggest that
the good group forms stronger phonological representations, available
for both STM and LTM tasks.
8:20–8:35 (150)
When Does Silence Speak Louder Than Words? Using Recall Dynamics
and Recall Quality to Investigate Working Memory. JOHN N.
TOWSE, Lancaster University, NELSON COWAN, University of Missouri,
Columbia, & NEIL J. HORTON, Lancaster University—Working
memory span tasks combine nontrivial processing requirements with
explicit memory demands. They are extensively used as indices of
working memory capacity and are linked with a wide range of important
higher level cognitive skills. Drawing upon evidence that includes
silent pauses in sequence recall, we report four studies that assess
the interdependence between processing and memory in reading
span. Each experiment compares two types of reading span, in which
memoranda are either integrated with or independent from sentence
processing. Absolute levels of recall vary substantially between these
conditions, and the chronometry of recall strongly suggests that reconstructive
processes contribute to commonly employed forms of
reading span. We assess reading span, using both spoken recall and
an item and order reconstruction paradigm involving nonspoken responses.
We also examine the contribution of a generation effect
(Slamecka & Graf, 1978) to reading span performance. The data provide
fresh theoretical perspectives on working memory.
8:40–8:55 (151)
Articulation Without Suppression: Dissociable Processing Streams
for Phonology and Articulation. TIMOTHY C. RICKARD, University
of California, San Diego—Subjects were instructed to synchronize
vocal repetition of “ta” with subvocal recitation of the alphabet to a
specified letter. Another group was instructed to interleave these tasks.
For the synchronize group, subvocal recitation accuracy was high at
all rates (1,000–400 msec per letter), whereas for the interleave group,
accuracy was lower and decreased markedly with increasing rate. Several
factors eliminate the possibility that subjects recited the letters visually,
instead of phonologically. These results are consistent with the
subjective experience that subvocalization is possible while reading
under articulatory suppression and with related results from the speech
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production literature. Previous findings to the contrary, using the
phonological similarity task, may reflect task difficulty and (or) failure
of subjects to adopt a synchronize strategy. Data from an ongoing
experiment, as well as implications for working memory theory and
for use of articulatory suppression as a research tool, are discussed.
9:00–9:15 (152)
Artificially Induced Valence of Distractors Increases the Irrelevant
Speech Effect. AXEL BUCHNER & BETTINA MEHL, Heinrich Heine
University, Düsseldorf, KLAUS ROTHERMUND, Friedrich Schiller
University, Jena, & DIRK WENTURA, Saarland University—In a game
context, nonwords were artificially associated with negative valence,
or they were neutral or irrelevant. Subsequently, participants memorized
target words in silence or while ignoring the irrelevant, neutral,
or negatively valent distractor nonwords. The presence of distractor
nonwords impaired recall performance, but negative distractor nonwords
caused more disruption than did neutral and irrelevant distractors,
which did not differ in how much disruption they caused. These
findings conceptually replicate earlier results showing disruption due
to valence with natural language words, and they extend these earlier
results in demonstrating that auditory features that may possibly be
confounded with valence in natural language words cannot be the
cause of the observed disruption. Explanations of the irrelevant
speech effect within working memory models that specify an explicit
role of attention in the maintenance of information for immediate serial
recall can explain this pattern of results, whereas structural models
of working memory cannot.
9:20–9:35 (153)
Integrating Verbal Information in Working Memory With Language
Knowledge. GRAHAM J. HITCH, ALAN D. BADDELEY, &
RICHARD J. ALLEN, University of York (sponsored by Philip Thomas
Quinlan)—We investigated the hypothesis that an episodic buffer
(Baddeley, 2000) is necessary for integrating verbal information held
in working memory with knowledge about sequential redundancy in
language. We did this by comparing the effects of various concurrent
tasks on immediate serial recall of constrained sentences and scrambled
word lists. The concurrent tasks were designed to interfere with
phonological storage, visuospatial storage, or executive components
of working memory. Results suggest that the beneficial effect of sequential
redundancy is largely automatic when a sentence is spoken
but involves executive processes when presentation is visual and access
to the phonological store is blocked. The first finding is consistent
with a direct link between the phonological store and language
knowledge that does not require access to an episodic buffer. The second
finding suggests that episodic buffer storage is required when the
direct link is not available.
9:40–9:55 (154)
Neuroimaging Evidence for a Single Lexical–Semantic Buffer Involved
in Language Comprehension and Production. RANDI C.
MARTIN & PHILIP BURTON, Rice University, & A. CRIS HAMIL-
TON, University of Pennsylvania—Patients with semantic short-term
memory deficits have difficulty comprehending sentences in which several
word meanings must be held prior to integration (Martin & He, 2004)
and with producing phrases containing multiple content words (Martin
& Freedman, 2001). These results suggest that the same lexical–
semantic buffer is used in comprehension and production. As these
patients’ lesions include the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG), the
present fMRI study sought evidence from neurally intact subjects for
LIFG involvement in semantic retention. Our experiments contrasted
neural activation for delayed versus immediate word meaning integration
during sentence anomaly detection (Experiment 1) and for the
production of adjective–noun phrases versus copular sentences (Experiment
2). Results provide converging evidence for the involvement
of the same lexical–semantic buffer in comprehension and production
and for a LIFG localization for this buffer.