The phonological store abandoned

Baddeley and Larsen (2007) argue that a number of key findings reported by Jones, Macken, and Nicholls (2004) and Jones, Hughes, and Macken (2006) pointing to shortcomings of the phonological store construct arise from the store being abandoned with long lists. In our rejoinder we point out that Baddeley and Larsen use a procedure in which retrieval from the supposed phonological storage would not—according to their own theory—have been possible, and we present theoretical, empirical, and logical problems with their “store abandonment” argument and highlight a number of difficulties associated with the interpretation of suffix and prefix effects. We conclude that our data are still problematic for the phonological store construct and suggest that a reformulation of short-term memory theory needs to embody (or indeed focus exclusively upon) perceptual and effector systems rather than bespoke storage modules.     

The ineluctable modality of the audible: perceptual determinants of auditory verbal short-term memory

Classical cognitive accounts of verbal short-term memory (STM) invoke an abstract, phonological level of representation which, although it may be derived differently via different modalities, is itself amodal. Key evidence for this view is that serial recall of phonologically similar verbal items (e.g., the letter sounds b, c, g, and d) is worse than that of dissimilar items, regardless of modality of presentation. Here we show that the effect of such phonological similarity in STM can be fully accounted for by the joint action of articulatory similarity, leading to errors in speech planning processes, and acoustic similarity within auditorily presented lists, which modulates their perceptual organization. The results indicate that key evidence used to argue for the existence of abstract phonological representation can in fact be fully accounted for by reference to modality-specific perceptual and motor planning mechanisms.     

Listen Out! Behavioural and Subjective Responses to Verbal Warnings

Both the behavioural and subjective impacts of single‐word spoken warnings were examined. Behaviourally, the effect of infrequently occurring warnings was studied through their disruptive impact on a visually presented serial recall task. In separate experiments, ratings of the same words were elicited. Experiment 1 showed a localized effect of the warnings (on the item immediately following the warning), with the urgently intoned warning having a greater disruptive effect than its valence (emotional content). Valence and intonation (urgency) did not interact. The performance changes were mirrored in the ratings of the words. Experiment 2 showed no systematic effect on performance of either the action‐relatedness of the word or its lexicality. There was, however, a systematic effect of lexicality but not action‐relatedness on ratings. The study demonstrates the feasibility of using objective performance methods to establish the likely effects of verbal warnings and the utility of using such methods for the design of alarm systems. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Disruption of Short term Recognition Memory for Tones: Streaming or Interference?

A sequence of auditory stimuli interpolated between the initial presentation of a tone and a comparisontone impairs recognition performance.Notably, the impairment is much lesswith interpolated speech than with tones. Six experiments converge on the conclusion that this pattern ofimpairment isdue more to the organization of the interpolated sequence than to its similarity to the to-be-remembered standard. Factors that contribute to the coherence of the interpolated sequence into a stream distinct from the initial tone are primary determinants of the level of impairment. This is demonstrated by manipulating factors that contribute to the coherence of the interpolated sequence by the action of temporal, spatial, timbral, and tonal attributes. However, the relative immunity of recognition performance to the interpolation of unprocessed digit sequences is not explained wholly by such coherence.     

The phonological store of working memory: is it phonological and is it a store?

The phonological store construct of the working memory model is critically evaluated. Three experiments test the prediction that the effect of irrelevant sound and the effect of phonological similarity each survive the action of articulatory suppression but only when presentation of to-be-remembered lists is auditory, not visual. No evidence was found to support the interaction predicted among irrelevant speech, modality, and articulatory suppression. Although evidence for an interaction among modality, phonological similarity, and articulatory suppression was found, its presence could be diminished by a suffix, which is an acoustic, not a phonological factor. Coupled with other evidence--from the irrelevant sound effect and errors in natural speech--the action attributed to the phonological store seems better described in terms of a combination of auditory-perceptual and output planning mechanisms.     

Elimination of the word length effect by irrelevant sound revisited

The word length effect refers to the tendency for lists of long words to be recalled less well than lists of short words. Theoretical and empirical objections are raised to a recent claim that irrelevant speech eliminates the word length effect (Neath, Suprenant, & LeCompte, 1998). A first experiment using a within-subjects design of adequate power (N = 65) fails to replicate their finding, showing instead that the word length effect is not differentially eliminated by speech as opposed to tones. In a second experiment, the effect of change (repeated vs. changing sounds) is shown to be additive to the effect of word length for both speech and nonspeech. Irrelevant speech and irrelevant tones have comparable effects on lists of short or lists of long words. These results are at variance with the feature model (e.g., Nairne, 1990).     

Attentional modulation of the visual motion aftereffect has a central cognitive locus: evidence of interference by the postcategorical on the precategorical

An attentionally demanding task undertaken during adaptation to motion reduces the duration of the subsequent motion aftereffect (A. Chaudhuri, 1990). Previous studies have suggested that this effect is intramodal in character, reflecting the selective deployment of visual attention. The present study demonstrates that nonvisual tasks, performed concurrently with motion adaptation, can significantly reduce the duration of the ensuing aftereffect. Three experiments converge on the conclusionthat postcategorical processes can influence otherwise unrelated concurrent precategorical processes. The experiments also show that neither perceptual input nor motor output components of the attentional task are responsible for the subsequent reduction in motion of aftereffect. The results suggest a reappraisal of findings in this area and of the general distinction between perception and cognition.     

Environmental context and recognition: the role of recollection and familiarity

Evidence for effects of changed environmental context on recognition has been equivocal. Using 3 experiments, the author investigated the role of environmental context from a dual-processing approach. Experiment 1 showed that testing word recognition in a novel context led to a reliable decrement but only for recognition accompanied by conscious recollection, with familiarity-based recognition judgments being unaffected. This was replicated in Experiment 2 using stimuli that were novel to the participants (nonwords). Experiment 3 showed that the decrement in recollection also occurred when the changed-context condition involved presenting items in a different but familiar context. The results suggest that effects of environmental context will only be found when recognition is accompanied by conscious recollection and that this effect is due to a specific item-context association.     

The impact of broadband noise on serial memory: changes in band-pass frequency increase disruption

Irrelevant sound consisting of bursts of broadband noise, in which centre frequency changes with each burst, markedly impaired short-term memory for order. In contrast, a sequence of irrelevant sound in which the same band-pass noise burst was repeated did not produce significant disruption. Serial recall for both visual-verbal (Experiment 1) and visual-spatial items (Experiment 2) was sensitive to the increased disruption produced by changing irrelevant noise. The results provide evidence that sounds that are largely aperiodic can produce marked disruption of serial recall in a similar manner to periodic sounds (e.g., speech, musical streams, and tones), and thus show a changing-state effect.     

Reification of phonological storage

We question the arguments and data presented by Larsen and Baddeley (this issue 2003) in support of the phonological loop account of verbal short-term memory on a number of grounds. These include the correlation between effect size and the presence of a phonological similarity effect in the data, and the existence elsewhere in the literature of effects of articulatory suppression and interference between verbal and nonverbal information that undermines the phonological loop account. We question the idea that short-term memory phenomena are best conceived of in terms of phonological storage, and we sketch an alternative perspective that does not rely on the notion of a bespoke phonological store, an entity that we argue represents a reification.