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Word Length and the Structure of Short-Term Memory

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Word Length and the Structure of Short-Term Memory JOURNAL OF VERBAL LEARNING AND VERBAL BEHAVIOR 14, 575-589 (1975) Word Length and the Structure of Short-Term Memory ALAN D. BADDELEY Medical Research Council, Applied Psychology Unit AND NElL THOMSON AND MARY BUCHANAN University of Stifling, Scotland A number of experiments explored the hypothesis that immediate memory span is not constant, but varies with the length of the words to be recalled. Results showed: (1) Memory span is inversely related to word length across a wide range of materials; (2) When number of syllables and number of phonemes are held constant, words of short temporal duration are better recalled than words of long duration; (3) Span could be predicted on the basis of the number of words which the subject can read in approximately 2 sec; (4) When articulation is suppressed by requiring the subject to articulate an irrelevant sound, the word length effect disappears with visual presentation, but remains when presentation is auditory. The results are interpreted in terms of a phonemically-based store of limited temporal capacity, which may function as an output buffer for speech production, and as a supplement to a more central working memory system. Miller (1956) has suggested that the items, where items are defined experimental capacity of short-term memory is constant units. Words represent one commonly ac- when measured in terms of number of cepted type of item, and in this case, the chunks, a chunk being a subjectively meaning- chunking hypothesis would predict that the ful unit. Because of the subjective definition capacity of short-term memory, as measured of a chunk, this hypothesis is essentially in words, should be constant regardless of the irrefutable unless an independent measure of size or duration of the words used. the nature of a chunk is available. Typically A number of studies testing this hypothesis this problem has been avoided by making the have used the recency effect in free recall as simplifying assumption that such experi- an estimate of short-term memory capacity. menter-defined units as words, digits, and Craik (1968) found no reliable effect of word letters constitute chunks to the subject. length on performance in the free recall of Hence, although Miller's hypothesis is not separate groups of words comprising one to refutable in the absence of an independent five syllables. This invariance held true measure of a chunk, it is meaningful to test a whether performance was measured in terms weaker version, namely that the capacity of of either raw scores, or estimates of primary short-term memory is a constant number of memory and secondary memory components. We are grateful to the Social Science Research This result was replicated and extended by Council and the Medical Research Council for Glanzer and Razel (1974) who observed a financial support. We thank Ronald Bidgood for recency effect which was constant when running Experiment VII, Rob Baker for phonetic measured in number of items, even when an advice, and Graham Hitch for many useful discussions. Dr. Baddeley'saddress is: Medical Research Council, item comprised a whole proverb rather than a Applied Psychology Unit, Cambridge, CB2 2EF, single word, They concluded from their England. study that short-term or primary memory Copyright © 1975 by Academic Press, Inc. 575 All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. Printed in Great Britain 576 BADDELEY, THOMSON AND BUCHANAN has a capacity of two items regardless of item rate providing an indirect measure of word duration or complexity. length. The situation is, however, complicated Miller's generalization, however, was based by the fact that subjects in some cases were on the memory span paradigm, and it is asked to label pictures, and in others to read questionable whether recency and span de- words so that it is not clear whether the result pend on the same memory mechanisms. is due to articulation time or to difficulty in There is indeed a growing body of evidence retrieving the correct verbal label. Watkins suggesting that the recency effect in free recall and Watkins (1973) present the clearest is basically unrelated to short-term memory published evidence for an effect of word as measured by memory span. Such evidence length on memory span, in a study primarily includes: concerned with the modality effect. They (1) Craik's (1970) observation that a found evidence for a word length effect on subject's memory span correlates more highly earlier serial positions, but observed that the with the secondary memory than the primary modality effect (the enhanced recall of memory component of free recall. auditorily presented items) did not interact (2) Memory span shows clear evidence of with word length. They suggest that the word speech coding, being impaired by both length effect observed may have been due to phonemic similarity (Conrad, 1964; Baddeley, the greater difficulty of perceiving their 1966) and articulatory suppression (Levy, four-syllable words which were presented at a 1971). This is not the case for the recency 1/sec rate. effect in free recall which is unaffected by These studies do not support the hypothesis either phonemic similarity (Craik & Levy, that memory span capacity is a constant 1970; Glanzer, Koppenaal, & Nelson, 1972) number of items. However, it is always or articulatory suppression (Richardson & possible to save the item-based hypothesis by Baddeley, 1975). questioning the assumption that words con- (3) Baddeley and Hitch (1974) have shown stitute items. Given evidence that short-term unimpaired recency in free recall for subjects memory is a speech-based system, it could be performing a concurrent memory span task reasonably argued that its capacity should be involving the retention of a sequence of six measured in more basic speech units such as digits. Since the memory span task did not syllables or phonemes. The experiments that interfere with recency, it is difficult to main- follow aim first to study the influence of tain the view that the two tasks are based on word-length on memory span, secondly to the same limited-capacity system. explore the relative importance of number of Studies investigating the effect of word syllables and temporal duration of a word as length on memory span do not in general determinants of span, and thirdly to explore support the weak version of Miller's hypo- the implications of this for the question of thesis. Thus, unpublished work by Laughery, whether the underlying memory system is Lachman, and Dansereau (Note 1) and by time-based or item-based. Standing, Bond, and Smith (Note 2) have reported poorer performance in a memory EXPERIMENT I span task when longer words are used. Mackworth (1963) found a high correlation This study compared the memory span of between reading rate and memory span for a subjects for sets of long and short words of wide range of materials, including pictures, comparable frequency of occurrence in letters, digits, shapes, and colors. This result English. One set comprised eight mono- could be interpreted in terms of word length syllables, namely, sum, hate, harm, wit, bond, as a determinant of memory span, with reading yield, worst, and twice. The other set corn- WORD LENGTHAND MEMORYSPAN 577 prised eight five-syllable words, namely ance at each sequence length for the long and association, opportunity, representative, organ- the short words. There is a very clear advan- ization, considerable, immediately, university, tage to the short word set which occurs at all and individual. sequence lengths and is characteristic of all eight subjects tested. Method Five list lengths were used, comprising [] ONE SYLLABLE [] FIVE SYLLABLES sequences of four, five, six, seven, and eigh.t I00 " words. Eight sequences of each length were o made up from the pool of short words, and ~v BO - eight from the pool of long words. In both cases, sequences were generated by sampling 60" 8 at random without replacement from the appropriate pool of words. All subjects were c° 40 - tested on both long and short words, and all received the sequences in ascending order of u~ 20- list length, beginning with sequences of four o words and proce~..ing up to the point at 4 5 6 7 B which they failed on all eight sequences, Words per sequence whereupon testing on the pool of words in FIo. 1. Effect of word length on memory span. question was discontinued. Half the subjects Mean percentage recall of long and short words as began with the pool of long words, and half a functionof sequence length. with the short words. The words were read to the subject at a There is little doubt that the sample of short 1.5-sec rate, with each list being preceded words used results in better memory span by the spoken warning "Ready." Subjects performance than the sample of long words. were allowed 15 sec to recall the words However, it is arguable that polysyllabic verbally in the order presented. Subjects words tend to be linguistically different were allowed to familiarize themselves with from monosyllables. In particular, our poly- the two pools of words at the beginning of syllables tended to be of Latin origin, com- the experiment, and these two pools remained pared to the monosyllables which seemed to visible to the subjects on prompt cards comprise simpler words of Anglo-Saxon throughout the experiment. Several different origin. Experiment II attempted to avoid this prompt cards with the words in differing problem by using words from a single cate- orders were used in this and subsequent gory, country names, a sample of material experiments so as to prevent the subjects unlikely to come from any single language from using location on the card as a cue.
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