Serial position effects in nonword repetition

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2004.12.002 Byline: Prahlad Gupta, John Lipinski, Brandon Abbs, Po-Han Lin Abstract: 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 within-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. Author Affiliation: Department of Psychology ,University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA Article Note: (footnote) [star] We thank Gary Dell for helpful comments on this work, and Matthew Brown, Sara Even, Naveen Khetarpal, James Malicki, Byron Murphy, Sarah Oakley, Millisa Reynolds, Ellen Samuel, Kathleen Schnitker, Sierra Spies, and Linda Wood for assistance in conducting and transcribing experiments.