ITEM LENGTH ACOUSTIC SIMILARITY AND NATURAL LANGUAGE MEDIATION AS VARIABLES IN SHORT-TERM MEMORY

Reports 4 experiments on short-term retention. Undergraduates served as Ss. Retention is known to be an inverse function of number of elements in the item, and Exp. I inquired if this finding is a function of the ease with which natural language mediators (NLMs) are formed. Acoustic similarity and item length were variables in Exp. I. The NLMs functioned as hypothesized, but a confounding with associative strength precluded a theoretical decision about the number of elements variable. The effects of acoustic similarity were essentially absent. Exp. II-IV pursued other aspects of acoustic similarity, and the effects of it were small and unsystematic. A need for clarifying the role of the acoustic similarity variable is discussed. (22 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1969 American Psychological Association.