A developmental study of the Prelinguistic Auditory Store (PAS)

Lists of digits 5 and 7 items in length were presented to second graders, sixth graders, and low-IQ sixth graders in either the visual or auditory modality. Half the auditory lists were followed by the redundant nonrecalled, auditorily presented word “recall” which served as a list suffix. The second graders had the most errors in the ordered recall task followed by the low-IQ sixth- and normal sixth-graders in that order. The size of the modality and suffix effects for the various groups seemed to indicate that, for the younger subjects, a larger proportion of the recall after auditory presentation comes from the Prelinguistic Auditory Store than for the older subjects.