Semantic Networks and Order Recall in Verbal Short-Term Memory - eScholarship

Semantic Networks and Order Recall in Verbal Short-Term Memory Marie Poirier (m.poirier@city.ac.uk) Memory Research Unit, City University London, Northampton Square, London, U.K., EC1V 0HB Jean Saint-Aubin (Jean.Saint-Aubin@umoncton.ca) Psychology Department, Moncton University, Moncton Campus, Pav. Leopold-Taillon, 18 ave Antonine-Maillet, Moncton, NB, Canada, E1A 3E9 Ali Mair (Ali.Mair.2@city.ac.uk) Memory Research Unit, City University London, Northampton Square, London, U.K., EC1V 0HB Gerry Tehan (gerry.tehan@usq.edu.au) Department of Psychology, University of Southern Queensland, Springfield Campus PO Box 4196, Springfield Central, QLD 4300, Australia Anne Tolan (Anne.Tolan@acu.edu.au) Department of Psychology, Australian Catholic University, PO Box 456, Virginia, QLD 4014, Australia Postle, 2011; Hamilton & Martin, 2007;, R. C. Martin, 2006; Majerus, 2009; and Thorn & Page, 2009). Nevertheless, there has been little work on factors associated with semantic LTM. The study reported here aimed to test a hypothesis that suggests that semantic LTM plays an important role in immediate memory for order. Abstract In a recent paper, Acheson, MacDonald, and Postle (2011) made an important but controversial suggestion: They hypothesised that a) semantic information has an effect on order information in short-term memory (STM) and b) that order recall in STM is based on the level of activation of items within the relevant long-term memory (LTM) network. However, verbal STM research typically has led to the conclusion that factors such as semantic category have a large effect on the number of correctly recalled items and little or no significant impact on order recall (Poirier & Saint-Aubin, 1995; Tse, 2009). Both of the studies reported here tested the hypotheses advanced by Acheson et al. Results show that as predicted, manipulating the putative activation of list items significantly impacts the recall of item order. The Role of LTM in Short-Term Recall: Keywords: Short-term memory; working memory; order recall; immediate memory; activated long-term memory. Short- and Long-term Memory We are all familiar with the experience of reading material from an area known to us. Expressions, arguments and ideas are recognised; our previous knowledge significantly supports our grasp of the paper. In important ways, this example illustrates one of the most fundamental functions that memory performs: allowing the past to support and guide our present interactions with the world. This paper is about the interaction between semantic knowledge and the last few seconds of our most recent past – the content of short-term memory (STM). Until relatively recently, little systematic consideration was given to how the lexical/semantic properties of verbal items affect performance in STM tasks. However, current work bears witness to the growing interest in this area, with research systematically exploring the relationship between language organisation in long-term memory (LTM) and verbal short-term recall (e.g. Acheson, MacDonald, & The study of LTM contributions to verbal short-term recall has typically relied on a classic task: immediate serial recall. In this task, a small number of verbal items are presented — usually between 5 and 7—and participants must attempt to recall these items, in their order of appearance, immediately after list presentation. It is now well established that word frequency/familiarity has a positive influence on immediate serial recall, as does concreteness and lexicality (see Saint- Aubin & Poirier, 1999a for a review). This is also true at a sub-lexical level; when trying to remember non-words, items containing more familiar phonemic components are better recalled (Thorn & Frankish, 2005). Currently, it can be argued that there are two general classes of views that address these findings. The first are typically known as redintegration accounts while the second suggest that verbal STM relies more directly on long-term representations. Redintegration. From this perspective immediate recall is a two-step process. It is first assumed that participants encode verbal material into phonological forms, as suggested by the well know articulatory loop / working memory model (e.g. Baddeley, 1986). In the absence of rehearsal, these representations are thought to rapidly become degraded either by decay or through interference. At the point of recall, a retrieval mechanism produces a phonological representation as a candidate for output. The memory trace may or may not be degraded (but see Roodenrys & Miller,

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