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A growing body of research has emphasized the linkage between performance in immediate serial recall of lists, nonword repetition, and word learning. Recently, it has been reported that primacy and recency effects are obtained in repetition of individual syllables within nonwords (Gupta, in press). Five experiments examined whether such with- in-nonword primacy and recency effects are attributable to common sequencing mechanisms that are shared with immediate list recall. Experiments 1 and 2 indicated that the primacy and recency effects are not simply due to greater morphological salience at the beginnings/endings of nonwords, and that the serial position effects generalize to different stimuli and across a variety of stimulus lengths. Experiment 3 indicated that the primacy and recency effects are similar to those obtained in list recall. Experiments 4 and 5 examined alternative hypotheses for the observed serial position effects, concluding that the alternative hypotheses fail to account for the obtained pattern of results. These results provide support for the common sequencing mechanisms hypothesis. The implications of these results are discussed in terms of the relationship between list recall and nonword repetition, and in terms of broader issues in word learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twelve experiments examined the effect of neighborhood density on repetition latency for nonwords. Previous reports have indicated that nonwords from high density neighborhoods are repeated with shorter latency than nonwords from low density neighborhoods (e.g., Vitevitch & Luce, 1998). Experiment 1 replicated these previously reported results; however, further analysis indicated an interaction of neighborhood density and stimulus duration in determining nonword repetition latency. Experiment 2 employed stimuli with reduced durational differences, finding that there was no effect of neighborhood density on repetition latency when stimulus duration was statistically controlled. Experiments 3 and 4 replicated these results with an alternative presentation regimen. Experiments 5–12 repeated these investigations with different stimulus sets, and obtained consistent effects of stimulus duration on repetition latency, and either no effect of neighborhood density or a latency advantage for low density rather than high density nonwords. The theoretical implications of these results for models of lexical processing are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]