Verbal working memory and linguistic long-term memory: Exploring the lexical cohort effect

[en] Numerous studies have shown that verbal working memory (vWM) performance is strongly influenced by linguistic knowledge, with items more familiar at sublexical, lexical and/or semantic levels leading to higher vWM recall performance. Among the many different psycholinguistic variables whose impact on vWM has been studied, the lexical cohort effect is one of the few effects that has not yet been explored. The lexical cohort effect reflects the fact that words sharing their first phonemes with many other words (e.g. alcove, alligator, alcohol…) are typically responded to more slowly as compared to words sharing their first phonemes with a smaller number of words. In a pilot experiment (Experiment 1), we manipulated the lexical cohort effect in an immediate serial recall task and found no effect. Experiment 2 showed that, in a lexical decision task, participants responded more quickly to items stemming from small cohorts, showing that the material used in Experiment 1 allowed for a valid manipulation of the cohort effect. Experiment 3, using stimuli from Experiment 2 associated with maximal cohort effects during lexical decision, failed again to reveal a cohort effect in an immediate serial recall task. We argue that linguistic knowledge impacts vWM performance via continuous interactive activation within the linguistic system, which is not the case for the lexical cohort variable which may influence language processing only at the initial stages of stimulus activation.

Research center :

PsyNCog - Psychologie et Neuroscience Cognitives - ULiège

Disciplines :

Theoretical & cognitive psychology

Author, co-author :

Kowialiewski, Benjamin ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Psychologie > Département de Psychologie

Majerus, Steve ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Psychologie > Département de Psychologie

Language :

English

Title :

Verbal working memory and linguistic long-term memory: Exploring the lexical cohort effect

Publication date :

2019

Journal title :

Memory and Cognition

ISSN :

0090-502X

eISSN :

1532-5946

Publisher :

Psychonomic Society, United States - Texas

Volume :

Pages :

997-1011

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Funders :

F.R.S.-FNRS - Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique [BE]

Available on ORBi :

since 19 January 2019

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