The working memory model, as introduced by Baddeley and Hitch in 1974, outlined two distinct components: the phonological loop (PL) which deals with auditory information, and the visuospatial sketchpad which is concerned with visuo-spatial data. The PL consists of two parts, the phonological store and the articulatory control process (ACP). According to Baddeley and Hitch, auditory information is held in the store for about two seconds while the ACP recycles this information, through subvocalisation, to prevent decay.
The three main characteristics of the PL are: the word length effect which showed that short term recall of words gets worse as words get longer (Baddeley et al., 1975), the phonological similarity effect which states that recall is worse if a list of words is phonologically similar (Conrad & Hull 1964; Larsen et al., 2000), and the irrelevant sound effect which states that all unattended sounds, regardless of language (Colle &Welsh, 1976), or irrelevance (Salame & Baddeley, 1982) impaired performance. This is known as articulatory suppression. Salame and Baddeley (1989) found that vocal music impaired performance as well while Jones and Macken (1993) observed that instrumental music disrupts performance as long as it fluctuated in pitch. This essay will outline the role of PL in various everyday situations using the characteristics stated above. It has been suggested that the PL plays a strong role in the learning of language. Papagno and Vallar (1992) found that phonological similarity had a negative effect on both familiar and novel word recall, though the latter was more affected. This was true even when a delay was introduced between tasks. The word-length effect was only observed on novel items suggesting that the PL is involved in learning novel words. Papagno, Valentine and Baddeley (1991) observed that articulatory suppression had an effect on learning of novel (Russian) words but not of native (Italian) language pair words. This suggests that articulatory suppression disrupts foreign language vocabulary acquisition. Although, learning of new language is strongly related to forming pair associations between familiar and novel words. Gathercole, Hitch and Martin (1997) tested children on their ability to learn either familiar word pairs or word-nonword pairs and found that PL ability was strongly related to word-nonword learning but not with word pair learning. This suggested that the PL was not involved in the ability to learn new associations between familiar items. Similar results were found when Baddeley, Papagno & Gathercole (1998) studied patient PV who had a digit span of 2 and yet showed normal ability to form associations between words in her native Italian language. However, she was unable to form an association between a familiar (Italian) word and an unfamiliar word in Russian through auditory presentation. This led Baddeley et al. to conclude that the PL was crucial for the learning …show more content…
They found that children who scored low in non-word repetition were significantly worse in learning new names compared to children with high non-word repetition abilities. Similar result were found when Papagno and Vallar (1995) studied polyglot and non-polyglot Italian subjects on various domains, including their phonological abilities. They found that polyglots performed better in short-term memory tasks such as non-word repetition and auditory digit span as well as in paired-associate learning tasks which tests their ability to learn new (Russian) words. They suggested that the PL capacity (7 ± 2) (Miller, 1956) influenced the learning of foreign …show more content…
This is due to the differences in digit span between languages as mentioned earlier. Therefore, we can conclude that mental arithmetic in Chinese dialects with a digit span of around 10 would be the easiest compared to other languages. This difference has been observed in analysis of digit span in Spanish-English bilinguals by Ardila et al. (2000). They found that subjects performed better in Spanish than in English, but their performance in Spanish was higher than that of Spanish monolinguals. When they divided the sample according to the age of learning of the second language (English) they found that early bilinguals performed in English in accordance either to the English norm but showed better performance in Spanish compared to native Spanish speakers. While the late bilinguals performed in accordance to the Spanish norm but better than native English speaker in English. Therefore it can be concluded that subvocal rehearsal of digits is involved in performing accurately in mental arithmetic
The three main characteristics of the PL are: the word length effect which showed that short term recall of words gets worse as words get longer (Baddeley et al., 1975), the phonological similarity effect which states that recall is worse if a list of words is phonologically similar (Conrad & Hull 1964; Larsen et al., 2000), and the irrelevant sound effect which states that all unattended sounds, regardless of language (Colle &Welsh, 1976), or irrelevance (Salame & Baddeley, 1982) impaired performance. This is known as articulatory suppression. Salame and Baddeley (1989) found that vocal music impaired performance as well while Jones and Macken (1993) observed that instrumental music disrupts performance as long as it fluctuated in pitch. This essay will outline the role of PL in various everyday situations using the characteristics stated above. It has been suggested that the PL plays a strong role in the learning of language. Papagno and Vallar (1992) found that phonological similarity had a negative effect on both familiar and novel word recall, though the latter was more affected. This was true even when a delay was introduced between tasks. The word-length effect was only observed on novel items suggesting that the PL is involved in learning novel words. Papagno, Valentine and Baddeley (1991) observed that articulatory suppression had an effect on learning of novel (Russian) words but not of native (Italian) language pair words. This suggests that articulatory suppression disrupts foreign language vocabulary acquisition. Although, learning of new language is strongly related to forming pair associations between familiar and novel words. Gathercole, Hitch and Martin (1997) tested children on their ability to learn either familiar word pairs or word-nonword pairs and found that PL ability was strongly related to word-nonword learning but not with word pair learning. This suggested that the PL was not involved in the ability to learn new associations between familiar items. Similar results were found when Baddeley, Papagno & Gathercole (1998) studied patient PV who had a digit span of 2 and yet showed normal ability to form associations between words in her native Italian language. However, she was unable to form an association between a familiar (Italian) word and an unfamiliar word in Russian through auditory presentation. This led Baddeley et al. to conclude that the PL was crucial for the learning …show more content…
They found that children who scored low in non-word repetition were significantly worse in learning new names compared to children with high non-word repetition abilities. Similar result were found when Papagno and Vallar (1995) studied polyglot and non-polyglot Italian subjects on various domains, including their phonological abilities. They found that polyglots performed better in short-term memory tasks such as non-word repetition and auditory digit span as well as in paired-associate learning tasks which tests their ability to learn new (Russian) words. They suggested that the PL capacity (7 ± 2) (Miller, 1956) influenced the learning of foreign …show more content…
This is due to the differences in digit span between languages as mentioned earlier. Therefore, we can conclude that mental arithmetic in Chinese dialects with a digit span of around 10 would be the easiest compared to other languages. This difference has been observed in analysis of digit span in Spanish-English bilinguals by Ardila et al. (2000). They found that subjects performed better in Spanish than in English, but their performance in Spanish was higher than that of Spanish monolinguals. When they divided the sample according to the age of learning of the second language (English) they found that early bilinguals performed in English in accordance either to the English norm but showed better performance in Spanish compared to native Spanish speakers. While the late bilinguals performed in accordance to the Spanish norm but better than native English speaker in English. Therefore it can be concluded that subvocal rehearsal of digits is involved in performing accurately in mental arithmetic