Temporal properties of memory for speech in preschool children

The ability of four-year-old children to remember syllables was investigated, both to determine the temporal properties of memory for speech in subjects who do not use sophisticated retention strategies, and to determine what speech memory is available in the late preschool period. In Experiments 1 and 2, children were to remember pairs of nonsense syllables for 5, 10, 15, or 20 sec filled with a silent, manual task. In both experiments there was an apparent decay of one type of speech memory across 10-15 sec. In Experiment 2, strong interference was obtained when there was a final speech suffix item. An additional phase of this experiment verified that children cannot rehearse during the postlist period. However, in Experiments 3 and 4, suffix effects were not obtained with adult subjects in similar tasks. The results suggest that memory for speech persists for at least 10 sec even in preschool children, but that adults, unlike preschool children, engage in an additional type of speech coding that increases the resistance of memory to speech interference.