The ability to repeat a sentence relies on both knowing
phonological (speech sound) information and semantic (meaning) information. When
we hear a sentence, the phonological information is maintained in short-term
memory (STM). Additionally, related semantic knowledge held in long-term memory
(LTM) is activated, and can support sentence recall. How each type of
information contributes to remembering sentence content during STM recall and
encoding into LTM, however, remains unclear.
The present study examined learning of phonological and
semantic aspects of sentence. To test short-term repetition, participants were
asked to repeat sentences they heard after a short delay. During the short
delay, the participant either completed a phonological task or a finger tapping
task. The task during the delay was designed to either disrupt phonological
short-term memory (phonological task), or long-term memory more generally
(finger tapping task). After 100 sentences were completed, participants were
asked to recall all the sentences they previously. During this long-term cued
recall task, participants were presented with two words (the subject and the
main verb) from a sentence they had previously heard and were asked to recall
the sentence verbatim.
Results revealed that when phonological information was
blocked, short-term recall accuracy was reduced. Interestingly, long-term
recall for these sentences was better relative
to what they had remembered in the STM task. It was suggested that the
disruptive phonological task shifted the participant to processing the sentence
meaning in more depth, and hence, better encoding and recall.
The findings indicate that processing meaning vs.
phonological information supports long-term retention. If you’d like to read
another summary of this paper completed by our lab, click here: http://canadianslp.blogspot.ca/2016/02/semantic-and-phonological-contributions.html
Blogger: Theresa Pham
is a student in the combined MClSc/PhD program working under the supervision of
Dr. Lisa Archibald. Theresa’s work examines the learning of phonological
(speech sound) and semantic (meaning) aspects of words.
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