IS THE PHONOLOGICAL SIMILARITY EFFECT IN WORKING MEMORY DUE TO PROACTIVE INTERFERENCE FROM PRIOR LISTS AND WITHIN-LIST SIMILARITY?

Abstract

The phonological similarity effect (PSE) posits that short-term memory for acoustically similar items is substantially poorer than that of dissimilar items. However, it is unclear whether the effect arises from within-sequence similarity, and/or between-sequence proactive interference (PI). Although multiple studies support the former interpretation, Baddeley et al. (2018) identified that the between-sequence PI interpretation had yet to be tested. They conducted a serial reconstruction study to test this interpretation and the results strongly support the account that PSE is primarily influenced by within-sequence similarity. The present study address some limitations of the previous work by using immediate serial recall, non-repeated words, and examining protrusion errors, to more rigorously test the PI account. Results supports the finding that the PSE is primarily influenced by within-sequence similarity and not between-sequence PI. Nonetheless, there is evidence of the presence of PI effects on the PSE.