Roche Jaclynn, Tolan G Anne, Tehan Gerald
School of Psychology, Australian Catholic University, Australia.
Can J Exp Psychol. 2011 Dec;65(4):245-53. doi: 10.1037/a0024693. Epub 2011 Aug 8.
The following experiments explore word length and concreteness effects in short-term memory within an item-order processing framework. This framework asserts order memory is better for those items that are relatively easy to process at the item level. However, words that are difficult to process benefit at the item level for increased attention/resources being applied. The prediction of the model is that differential item and order processing can be detected in episodic tasks that differ in the degree to which item or order memory are required by the task. The item-order account has been applied to the word length effect such that there is a short word advantage in serial recall but a long word advantage in item recognition. The current experiment considered the possibility that concreteness effects might be explained within the same framework. In two experiments, word length (Experiment 1) and concreteness (Experiment 2) are examined using forward serial recall, backward serial recall, and item recognition. These results for word length replicate previous studies showing the dissociation in item and order tasks. The same was not true for the concreteness effect. In all three tasks concrete words were better remembered than abstract words. The concreteness effect cannot be explained in terms of an item-order trade off.
以下实验在项目顺序加工框架内探究了短期记忆中的词长效应和具体性效应。该框架认为，对于那些在项目层面相对易于加工的项目，顺序记忆效果更好。然而，难以加工的词在项目层面受益于更多注意力/资源的投入。该模型的预测是，在不同程度上需要项目或顺序记忆的情景任务中，可以检测到不同的项目和顺序加工情况。项目 - 顺序理论已应用于词长效应，即序列回忆中有短词优势，而项目识别中有长词优势。当前实验考虑了具体性效应可能在同一框架内得到解释的可能性。在两个实验中，使用正向序列回忆、反向序列回忆和项目识别来考察词长（实验1）和具体性（实验2）。词长效应的这些结果重复了先前显示项目和顺序任务中分离的研究。具体性效应的情况并非如此。在所有这三项任务中，具体词比抽象词更容易被记住。具体性效应无法用项目 - 顺序权衡来解释。
