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PubMed1975

Effects of tactual and phonological similarity on the recall of Braille letters by blind children.

Forty-eight severly blind children, able to cope with set-sizes of two and three, four, five or six serial items were tested on probed recall of Braille letters they could either name or discriminate, when the letters were (1) dissimilar in tactual characteristics and name sounds, (2) similar in feel, but different in name sound, and (3) dissimilar in feel but similar in name sound. Results showed that tactual similarity produced recall decrements by subjects able to be tested under set-sizes of up to five items, while phonological similarity produced recall decrements by subjects testable under set-sizes of five and six items. It was argued that tactual information survives perception and affects recall, and that blind children can encode tactual inputs either tactually or verbally, but that this probably depends upon different processes.

Auditory Perception↗
PubMed1976

Some evidence for 'speech' as an acoustic feature.

Under conditions of serial recall of auditorily presented lists of digits, recall of the last item has been shown to be adversely affected by the presence of a redundant item following the list. This is known as 'the suffix effect' (Crowder & Morton, 1969). In a series of experiments it is shown that the size of this effect is not influenced by the phonological complexity of the suffix. Non-speech sounds, on the other hand, produce no suffix effect even when the subjects are forced to process them. Certain speech sounds were also found to produce no effect. It is concluded that these sounds lacked properties which are characteristic of speech sounds and so were classified as 'non-speech' and that as a result, these sounds are processed by a separate system from the speech sounds.

Adult↗
PubMed1977

Pattern detection by mongol and non-mongol subnormals.

Ten mongols and ten clinically heterogeneous subnormals matched on chronological age, mental age and digit span took part in an experiment in which tape-recorded supra-span digit sequences with different patterns were presented. There were six patterns: random, mirror (e.g. 583385); same-digit pairs (e.g. 558833), same-digit throughout (e.g. 333333), couplet repetition (e.g. 585858) and triplet repetition (583583). The numbers of digits correctly recalled in any order by the mongols in the various conditions ranked from least to most were: random, mirror, same-digit pairs, same-digit messages, triplet repetition and couplet repetition. The rank order for the non-mongols was the same except that the positions of couplet and triplet repetition were reversed. Mongols had significantly poorer recall for random, mirror and same-digit pair messages than non-mongols but were their equals in other conditions. The mongols' performance was more sensitive to pattern than the performance of the other subjects. There was some evidence that, in the messages with same-digit pairs and the same digit throughout, all subjects (but mongols in particular) tended to insert new digits into the response sequence and that the digit introduced was the next one in simple arithmetic progression. It would appear that the hypothesis about poor auditory-vocal channelling capacities of mongols needs qualification.

Adult↗
PubMed1979

Noise and the "rehearsal-masking hypothesis".

This study examines the proposal that continuous loud noise impairs short-term recall by masking the inner speech necessary to rehearse material in memory (Poulton, 1976 a, 1977 b). The "masking hypothesis" contrasts with previous theories which relate recall impairment in noise to the latter's action in over-arousing the individual or inducing changes in attentional deployment. Separate groups performed a visual, serial eight-consonant recall task in either 92 dBA "noise" or 75 dBA "quiet" and in "normal" or "suppressed" rehearsal conditions. The masking hypothesis predicted that noise would impair recall relative to quiet in normal rehearsal conditions. But where the rehearsal of both groups was already suppressed by a concurrent articulatory task, recall would not differ between the groups through noise-masking then being irrelevant. Total correct recall scores appeared to confirm the masking hypothesis but the pattern of serial order recall showed differences between noise and quiet in suppressed rehearsal conditions which seemed better explained by an attentional influence of noise. Further, reduced commission and acoustic confusion errors in noise were not consistent with the predictions of the masking hypothesis. It was concluded that noise-masking could not be refuted but that attentional changes due to the arousing action of noise might also be active determinants of recall.

Adult↗
PubMed1980

Effects of subvocal suppression, articulating aloud and noise on sequence recall.

Subjects were required to reproduce in order a sequence of five letters; the set of letters was known so only memory for sequence was tested. Experiment 1 showed that suppressing subvocal rehearsal by saying 'the' continously during list presentation and until recall depressed performance to the same level on acoustically confusable and non-confusable lists. Listening to 85 dBC white noise during list presentation improved performance on acoustically confusable lists in non-suppression conditions and had no effect in suppression conditions. The result refutes the hypothesis that noise suppresses inner speech. Expts 2, 3 and 4 showed that articulating the items aloud during list presentation and until recall improved performance when lists were presented at 1/2 s per item and depressed it when they were presented at 2 s per item. Improvement occurred under 85 dBC white noise in Expts 2 and 4, but the improvement was only significant in non-articulation conditions. It is suggested that noise increases subvocal articulation and that both noise and articulation increase maintenance rehearsal at the expense of elaboration rehearsal.

Arousal↗
PubMed1983

Influences of delayed distraction on the modality effect in free recall.

The free recall recency items is better following lists presented auditorily rather than visually. This modality effect was eliminated by a 30-second, but not a three-second, period of auditory distraction delayed by 15 seconds following list presentation. It is argued that these findings are entirely consistent with the notion that the modality effect in free recall arises from the direct use of persistent modality-specific information, and not from the use of acoustic information which has been recoded into modality-independent memory.

Attention↗
PubMed1989

Immediate memory in the orally trained deaf: effects of 'lipreadability' in the recall of written syllables.

Immediate recall of written lists was compared in strictly orally trained born-deaf teenagers and in hearing controls. The lists were of syllables of CV form (e.g. SHA NA ZA DA). The deaf subjects showed a significant effect of consonant 'lipreadability'. Syllable lists containing consonants like D, SH and Z whose place of articulation is not visibly distinctive and which are therefore hard to lipread are less well recalled than (phonetically and orthographically matched) syllable lists containing consonants like F, TH and B which are produced with the tongue, teeth and lips in visible configuration. We conclude that for these deaf youngsters the phonological representation of written consonants is less secure for speech sounds that are hard, rather than easy, to lipread. The oral training of these youngsters has had an effect on their internal representation of written speech. Hearing subjects showed no 'lipreadability' effect in their recall of these lists. Reading-age matched controls (aged 8-10 years) showed significantly shorter span for both list types than the deaf group. Older hearing controls (14-16 years) matched the deaf group in span and tended to recall most accurately written syllables which are not easily lipread. We discuss these comparisons and conclude that while this group of deaf subjects is using a phonological code in the recall of written syllables, it is qualitatively different from that used by hearing subjects in this task. In particular, not only hard-to-lipread consonants but also vowels may be less strongly represented in these deaf readers' 'inner voice'.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Spatial monitoring in visual working memory.

Three experiments examined the role of spatial monitoring in short-term visual memory. In the first experiment it was found that with consonants presented visually at one location articulatory suppression but not a concurrent tracking task disrupted performance. Experiment 2 demonstrated that tracking was disruptive when consonants were presented at three locations and more serial positions were affected when the locations of the consonants were random rather than highly predictable. Articulatory suppression was also disruptive in this study. The third experiment replicated the first two studies, without an articulatory suppression condition, using a within-subject design with a strictly forward serial recall constraint. The locus of the tracking effect was modified by this recall constraint suggesting that tracking disrupts a specific process that utilizes spatial monitoring. It was concluded that spatial monitoring depletes resources that can be used to encode visually presented consonants and these resources may be drawn from spatial working memory. The articulatory loop was also implicated given that articulatory suppression also disrupted performance. These results were explained in terms of working memory constellations. Morris (1986 b) suggested that such constellations consist of working memory components, in this instance the articulatory loop and spatial working memory, 'assembled' to meet task demands. This probably involves the activation, by the demand characteristics of the task, of modules in working memory that are similar to production system elements.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Working memory, comprehension ability and the resolution of text anomaly.

This article examines possible working memory deficits in 7-8-year-olds who are accurate readers but relatively poor comprehenders. In Expt 1, poor comprehenders scored below good comprehenders on a non-linguistic test of working memory (reading series of digits and recalling the last digit in each series) on the more taxing items. Experiment 2 examined the relationship between working memory and text comprehension using an anomaly resolution task. Good and poor comprehenders heard stories describing an adult's anomalous emotional response to a child's action, some of which contained information to resolve the anomaly. The load on working memory imposed by the need to integrate the resolution with the anomaly was varied in two ways: the resolution was presented immediately next to, or two sentences distant from, the anomaly, and appeared either before or after the anomaly. Poor comprehenders were worse than good ones at anomaly resolution only when the anomalous and resolving information were separated. The results support the hypothesis that text processing is influenced by working memory demands and suggest that children's comprehension is related to the efficiency of a general non-linguistic working memory system.

Attention↗
PubMed1994

Age-related differences in updating working memory.

Age-related differences in updating working memory were investigated in two experiments using a running memory task. In the first experiment, the task of the young and elderly subjects was to watch strings of four to 10 consonants and then to recall serially the four most recent items. Results revealed no age effect. A second experiment was then carried out using a memory load that was close to memory span: lists of six to 12 consonants were presented and subjects had to recall the last six items. Age interacted with list length but not with serial position. This dissociation is discussed in terms of Baddeley's (1986) model.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

The relationship between articulation time and memory performance in verbal and visuospatial tasks.

The number of verbal items which can be recalled immediately is related to the rate at which an individual can speak. Subvocal rehearsal, or articulatory recoding in working memory, has been assumed to mediate this relation. For spatial items recalled in order there is also a relationship with articulation rate, which is not related to verbal rehearsal of the items. One reason for this might be that the relationship is mediated by speed of memory scanning for serial position tags in a memory set, which is related to processing speed. Subjects were asked to perform visuospatial memory tasks which involved serial position and visuospatial memory tasks in which serial position was not involved. They also performed a digit span task. The results indicated that the visuospatial memory tasks were highly related, that they were only weakly related to digit span, and that articulation rate was correlated with every measure of memory performance used, whether serial position was involved or not. There is no support for the hypothesis that speed of scanning for serial position information in immediate spatial memory leads to a relationship with articulation rate, nor is there any support for the view that memory span tasks in different domains share resources for dealing with serial order. The results are discussed in relation to Cowan, Keller, Hulme, Roodenrys, McDougall & Rack's (1994) suggestion that the relationship between articulation rate and memory span may be mediated by general processing speed.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

A comparison of the encoding of content and order in olfactory memory and in memory for visually presented verbal materials.

The claim that there is no olfactory short-term memory store, as olfactory serial position (SP) effects are absent (Engen, 1987, 1989; Lawless & Engen, 1977), raises the issue whether memory for sensory qualities is differently organized from memories for more cognitive materials in vision and hearing. Early memory processing in olfaction is re-examined by comparing the results of similarly designed experiments which examine short-term memory for words and consonants, and for odours. Memory for content and memory for order were separately examined in each case. Serial position functions were obtained both for visually presented verbal materials and for odours. The serial position effects for content and order memory in both modalities are sufficiently similar in pattern to support the conclusion that short-term memory processing of olfactory and verbal stimuli is conducted by analogous memory mechanisms.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Serial report and item recognition of novel visual patterns.

Previous studies of memory for novel visual patterns have reported how item recognition varies across serial positions, but have neglected serial order memory. In Expts 1 and 2 participants reported the order in which short series of novel patterns had been presented. The results showed markedly bowed serial position curves similar to those reported for sequences of verbal items or spatial locations. Concurrent articulation reduced performance in the serial report task relative to the memory task alone (Expt 2) or concurrent tapping (Expt 3) suggesting that a verbal component was involved. When two-alternative forced choice tests were used to test memory for the configuration of each pattern in the series, no primacy or recency was found (Expt 4). In Expt 5 the presentation of a series of five items was followed at random by either a serial report or the two-choice item recognition task. The serial position curves for the two tasks remained different, suggesting that encoding strategies were not responsible. The results show that bowed serial position curves are found when judgments of serial order are required, even when phonological coding is discouraged, whereas memory for item descriptions is independent of serial position. The implications for current conceptualizations of short-term memory are discussed.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2002

Development of force control and timing in a finger-tapping sequence with an attenuated-force tap.

We conducted an experiment to examine age-related differences in the control of force and timing in a finger-tapping sequence with an attenuated-force tap. Participants between 7 and 20 years old tapped on a load cell with feedback on practice trials. They were required to recall the force pattern (300 g, 300 g, 300 g, 100 g) and the intertap interval (400 ms) without feedback on test trials. Analysis indicated that the last attenuated tap affected the first three taps of the tapping sequence in adults and adolescents but not in children. Adults and adolescents appeared to respond with four taps as a chunk, resulting in a contextual effect on the timing of force control, but younger children had difficulty with such chunking. Further, adults and adolescents were able to more accurately produce individual force magnitudes to match target magnitudes than younger children. For the ratio of force in serial positions 1:4, 2:4, and 3:4, consequently, 7- to 8-year-old children had lower ratios than the other age groups. Although there was no difference among age groups for timing control of peak force to press duration as a control strategy of force, 7- to 8-year-old children spent more time to produce force than the other age groups. Peak force with a decreased force was more variable in the attenuated force serial position (4) than in the other serial positions in all five age groups. Peak force variability was particularly robust in younger children. These findings suggest that younger children have difficulty with both temporal and spatial (i.e., magnitude) components of force control.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Effects of (+/-)-4-[[2-(1-methyl-2-pyrrolidinyl)ethyl]thio]phenol hydrochloride (SIB-1553A), a selective ligand for nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, in tests of visual attention and distractibility in rats and monkeys.

Nicotine, a nonselective ligand for nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs), has been shown to improve attention and reduce distractibility in humans. Although the numerous side effects induced by nicotine prevent its use as a therapeutic agent, it is hypothesized that subtype-selective nAChR ligands may offer a potential therapeutic benefit to humans with attention deficits. In this study, we evaluated the attention-enhancing properties of (+/-)-4-[[2-(1-methyl-2-pyrrolidinyl)ethyl]thio]phenol hydrochloride (SIB-1553A), a ligand selective for neuronal nAChRs with predominant activity at the human beta 4 subtype. SIB-1553A was evaluated in a test of attention (i.e., five-choice serial reaction time task or SRTT) and distractibility (i.e., delayed matching to sample task with distractor or DMTS-D) in adult rats and monkeys, respectively. SIB-1553A did not improve SRTT performance in normal rats, but reversed deficits induced by the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) antagonist dizocilpine. In the DMTS-D, SIB-1553A improved accuracy across several doses at the short delay intervals, which were affected most by distracting stimuli in adult monkeys. Subsequent testing with optimal doses for each monkey was also associated with significant improvements in DMTS-D accuracy at short delays, indicating the reproducibility of the drug effect. In both species, SIB-1553A had no significant effects on latencies for sample or choice selection and was not associated with adverse effects at efficacious doses. Although it remains to be further demonstrated, SIB-1553A may act through combined nicotinic and non-nicotinic mechanisms. Collectively, the present data suggest that in specific conditions SIB-1553A may improve certain aspects of attentional function in young adult rats and nonhuman primates without adverse side effects.

Animals↗
PubMed1982

Serial position curve in rats: role of the dorsal hippocampus.

In an eight-arm radial maze, normal rats demonstrated good immediate retention for the order of first items (primacy component of serial position curve) and last items (recency component of serial position curve) of an eight-item (arm) list. In contrast, rats with dorsal hippocampal lesions displayed, on an immediate retention test, disruption of the primacy but not the recency component of the serial position curve. Furthermore, imposing a 10-minute delay before the retention test impaired all components of the serial position curve. These results support correspondence in mnemonic function of the hippocampus in animals and humans.

Animals↗
PubMed1985

Memory processing of serial lists by pigeons, monkeys, and people.

List memory of pigeons, monkeys, and humans was tested with lists of four visual items (travel slides for animals and kaleidoscope patterns for humans). Retention interval increases for list-item memory revealed a consistent modification of the serial-position function shape: a monotonically increasing function at the shortest interval, a U-shaped function at intermediate intervals, and a monotonically decreasing function at the longest interval. The time course of these changes was fastest for pigeons, intermediate for monkeys, and slowest for humans.

Adult↗