A Research On The Mechanism Of Word Length Effect And Reverse Word Length Effect Of Chinese In Working Memory

Word length effect is a interesting phenomena in short term memory research. The finding is that lists of short words are substantially better recalled than lists of long words in immediate serial recall, short words have higher memory span than long words. Although the word length effect has been replicated many times and explained from different point of views. One model that is able to account for the results from the mixed lists is an extension of SIMPLE. By this account, word-length effects are due to item complexity, they found the isolated words were recalled better than other words in the same list and a reverse word-length effect in mixed lists: Isolated long words were recalled better than isolated short words. We used transliterated foreign place name as experiment materials, tried to demonstrate the word length effect of Chinese. We designed word-syllable matching or un-matching words, in order to research the mechanism of word length effect. At last, we introduced the project error analysis, deeper analyze into the effect.There are two serial parts, six experiments in all. Three experiments of serial one will be replicated word length effect of Chinese. Experiment 1 aims to two questions. The first point of issue concerns the question of whether the principal cause of impairment resulting form word length is based on the slower rehearsal of long words, or form the increased time it takes to recall and articulate the longer words during the process of recall. The second question arises as to whether the word length effect is attributable entirely to out interference, or whether rehearsal also plays a role. Experiment 2 using visual presentation studied the effect of articulatory suppression; we found the disappearance of a word length effect, as proposed by the phonological loop hypothesis. In addition, we also compared three kinds of mistakes for no articulatory suppress and articulatory suppress condition. The list of short words was more influenced by articulatory suppress. There were more omission error and movement error. Articulatory suppress was not only a load effect of working memory, but also prevented the items from being rehearsed with the subvocal articulatory control process. The result supported the explanation of phonological loop theory to word length effect. In experiment 3, we designed word-syllable matching or un-matching words. Subjects are divided into two operation conditions: pronounce condition which has to read the English word loudly when the item present and subvocal condition which no requirement asks for during memory. We find that in pronounce condition there are two effects of orthographic and phonological word length, and in non-pronounce condition only orthographic word length effect appearance.Serial two get deeper research in mechanism from word length effect to reverse word length effect. In experiment 4, there are four types of word lists with five words: a pure short word list with two length words, a pure long word list with four length words, and lists of long or short words containing just a single isolated word of a different length. We find a reverse word length effect in isolated word, and isolated long word is better than isolated short word and pure words. In experiment 5, we reduce the difference of total pronounce time of the two type of mixed list. According to the SIMPLE, the relative discriminability of the items in the mixed list is still existence. The reverse word length effect should be still existence in isolated word. but we find that the reverse word length effect is disappearance in isolated word. This result prove the importance of total pronounce time of list. In experiment 6, we design a recall task in which output delay was controlled. We consider that the visual code of items is a cause of the reverse word length effect in isolated word, but not the key reason.Serial one demonstrate the phonological loop theory, but in serial two we find that none theory can explain the effect perfectly. Phonological loop theory from phonological storage and the total pronounce time of list to consider this, and can not be explained isolated words better than pure words. SIMPLE is come to make an explanation from multi-dimensions of item, but excessively abstract, and no all-round. is viewed as discrimination of items in terms of their location along one or more dimensions. The two are not very good theory to explain these issues, the theory of integration is very important. Therefore, a multi-coding, parallel, competition, complementary theory is needed. The competition-complementary parallel processing (CCPP) model carries out all-round and entire explanation.