title: Number Frequency in L1 Differentially Affects Immediate Serial Recall of Numbers in L2 Between Beginning and Intermediate Learners.
abstract: A list number recall test in English (L2) was administered to both Japanese (L1) students with beginning-level English proficiency who attended evening high school and Japanese college students with intermediate-level English proficiency. The major findings were that, only for the high school group, the small numbers 1 and 2 in middle positions of lists were recalled better than the large numbers 8 and 9 and there was a significant correlation between number frequency in Japanese and recall performance. Equally intriguing was that in both groups for adjacent transposition errors, smaller numbers tended to appear in the first position and large numbers in the second; also, omission errors were commonly seen for larger numbers. These phenomena are interpreted as reflecting frequency and/or frequency-related effects. Briefly discussed were the bilingual short-term memory system, effects of number value, generality and implications of the findings, and weaknesses of the study.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Hiroshima University, 1-7-1, Kagamiyama, Higashi Hiroshima, 739-8521, Japan.
authors.forename: Norihiko
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sumioka
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Hiroshima University, 1-7-1, Kagamiyama, Higashi Hiroshima, 739-8521, Japan.
authors.forename: Atsuko
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Hiroshima University, 1-7-1, Kagamiyama, Higashi Hiroshima, 739-8521, Japan. junyamd@hiroshima-u.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yamada
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D055641:Mathematical Concepts; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D019303:Multilingualism; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Number recall in L2; Number-frequency effects; Short-term memory