Recall of Non-words in Younger, Middle Aged and Older Adults

Abstract

Non-words refer to words which are meaningless and legal non-words refer to meaningless words which adhere to phonological rules of a language. Non-words are formed by transposing the sound segments in words. The ability to recall a non-word or string of non-words would depend on the integrity of phonological short-term memory (PSTM) and would vary as a function of age. The present study was an attempt in investigating non-word recalls in young, middle aged and older adults. The stimuli considered for the study was divided into six sets based on the syllable length. The shortest non-word had 2 syllables while the longest of the non-words had six syllables. The stimuli were presented in a string of 6 units. Kruskal-Wallis test was administered on the participants and the results showed no significant difference indicating that the performance did not vary a function of age; however, the performance varied with word length. As the word length varied performance decremented.

Keywords: : language, memory, participants, speech
REFERENCES
[1] Gathercole SE, Service E, Hitch GJ, Adams AM, Martin, AJ. Phonological short-term memory and vocabulary development: Further evidence on the nature of the relationship. Applied Cognitive Psychology. 1999; 13: 65–77p.
[2] Gathercole SE, Hitch GJ, Service E, Martin A J. Short-term memory and new word learning in children. Developmental Psychology. 1997; 33: 966–979p.
[3] Papagno C, Vallar G. Phonological short-term memory and the learning of novel words: The effects of phonological similarity and item length. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 1992; 44A: 47–67p.