Core verbal working-memory capacity: the limit in words retained without covert articulation.
Verbal working memory may combine phonological and conceptual units. We disentangle their contributions by extending a prior procedure (Chen & Cowan, 2005) in which items recalled from lists of previously seen word singletons and of previously learned word pairs depended on the list length in chunks. Here we show that a constant capacity of about 3 chunks holds across list lengths and list types, provided that covert phonological rehearsal is prevented. What remains is a core verbal working-memory capacity.
Chen
Zhijian
Z
Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA. zcc3c@mizzou.edu
Cowan
Nelson
N
D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010700:Phonetics; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012043:Regression, Psychology; D012660:Semantics; D013997:Time Factors; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D014825:Vocabulary