Abstract
In two experiments, the immediate serial recall of lists of words or nonwords was investigated under quiet and articulatory suppression conditions. The results showed better item recall for words but better order recall for nonwords, as measured with proportion of order errors per item recalled. Articulatory suppression hindered the recall of item information for both types of lists and of order information for words. These results are interpreted in light of a retrieval account in which degraded phonological traces must undergo a reconstruction process calling on long-term knowledge of the tobe-remembered items. The minimal long-term representations for nonwords are thought to be responsible for their lower item recall and their better order recall. Under suppression, phonological representations are thought to be minimal, producing trace interpretation problems responsible for the greater number of item and order errors, relative to quiet conditions. The very low performance for nonwords under suppression is attributed to the combination of degraded phonological information and minimal long-term knowledge.
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This article was part of J.S.-A.’s doctoral thesis. Preparation of this article was supported by a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to M.P. J.S.-A. was supported by a graduate scholarship from NSERC and then by the Fonds pour la Formation de Chercheurs et l’Aide à la Recherche (FCAR). We are grateful to Pierre-André Richard for his stimuli. We also thank Kevin Allen, Anne-Pierre Bouffard, and Valérie Brochu for their help in preparing the materials and running Experiment 2.
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Saint-aubin, J., Poirier, M. Immediate serial recall of words and nonwords: Tests of the retrieval-based hypothesis. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 7, 332–340 (2000). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03212990
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03212990