Assessing short term verbal memory: Importance of linguistic aspects
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Published:
Jun 21, 2018
Keywords:
Assessment - verbal short term memory - linguistic aspects.
Main Article Content
Abstract
Verbal short-term memory deficits are frequently observed in developmental
disorders and they have a major impact on children’s learning abilities. The detection and measurement of these deficits is a difficult enterprise as verbal shortterm memory also relies on the integrity of the language system which is often
impaired in learning disorders (such as in dyslexia and specific language impairment). The aim of this article is to present recent theoretical models of verbal
short-term memory and to show how these models and derived assessment instruments can distinguish between intrinsic verbal short-term deficits and shortterm deficits that are the consequence of underlying language impairment.
Article Details
How to Cite
Majerus, S. (2018). Assessing short term verbal memory: Importance of linguistic aspects. AL-Lisaniyyat, 24(1), 7-20. https://doi.org/10.61850/allj.v24i1.81
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Articles
References
- Abrahamse, E., Van Dijck, J.P., Majerus, S., & Fias, W. (2014). Finding
the answer in space: the mental whiteboard hypothesis on serial order in
working memory. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, doi: 10.3389/
fnhum.2014.00932.
- Attout, L., Noël, M.P., & Majerus, S. (2014). The relationship between
working memory for serial order and numerical development: a longitudinal
study. Developmental Psychology, 50, 1667-1679.
- Attout, L., Van der Kaa, M. A., George, M., & Majerus, S. (2012). Dissociating
short-term memory and language impairment: The importance of item and
serial order information. Aphasiology, 26, 355-382.
- Baddeley, A.,Gathercole, S., & Papagno, C. (1998). The phonological loop
as a language learning device. Psychological Review, 105, 158-173.
- Baddeley, A. D. & Hitch, G. J. (1974). Working memory. In G.H.Bower
(Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation (pp. 47-90). San Diego,
CA: Academic Press.
- Barrouillet, P., Bernardin, S., & Camos, V. (2004). Time constraints and
resource sharing in adults’ working memory spans. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, 133, 83-100.
- Brown, G. D. A., Preece, T., & Hulme, C. (2000). Oscillator-based memory
for serial order. Psychological Review, 107, 127-181.
- Burgess, N. & Hitch, G. J. (1999). Memory for serial order: A network
model of the phonological loop and its timing. Psychological Review, 106,
551-581.
- Burgess, N. & Hitch, G. J. (2006). A revised model of short-term memory and
long-term learning of verbal sequences. Journal of Memory and Language,
55, 627-652.
- Cowan, N. (1995). Attention and memory: An integrated framework. New
York: Oxford University Press.
- Engle, R. W., Kane, M. J., & Tuholski, S. W. (1999). Individual differences
in working memory capacity and what they tell us about controlled attention,
general fluid intelligence, and functions of the prefrontal cortex. In A.Miyake
& P. Shah (Eds.), Models of working memory: Mechanisms of active
maintenance and executive control (pp. 102-134). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
- Farrell, S. & Lewandowsky, S. (2002). An endogenous distributed model of
ordering in serial recall. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review,9, 59-79
Fiebach, C. J., Friederici, A. D., Smith, E. E., & Swinney, D. (2007). Lateral
Inferotemporal Cortex Maintains Conceptual–Semantic Representations in
Verbal Working Memory. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19, 2035-
2049.
- Gathercole, S., & Baddeley, A. (1993). Phonological working memory: A
critical building block for reading development and vocabulary acquisition?
European Journal of Psychology of Education, 8 (3), 259-272.
- Gathercole, S. E., Frankish, C. R., Pickering, S. J., & Peaker, S. (1999).
Phonotactic influences on short-term memory. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 25, 84-95.
- Gupta, P.,& MacWhinney, B.(1997). Vocabulary acquisition and verbal
short-term memory: computational and neural bases. Brain and Language,
59, 267-333.
- Henson, R. N. A. (1998). Short-term memory for serial order: the start-end
model. Cognitive Psychology, 36, 73-137.
- Hulme, C., Maughan, S., & Brown, G. D. (1991). Memory for familiar and
unfamiliar words: Evidence for a long-term memory contribution to shortterm memory span. Journal of Memory and Language, 30, 685-701.
- Hurlstone, M. J., Hitch, G. J., & Baddeley, A. D. (2014). Memory for serial
order across domains: An overview of the literature and directions for future
research. Psychological Bulletin, 140(2), 339-373.
- Knott, R., Patterson, K., & Hodges, J.R.(1997). Lexical and semantic binding
effects in short-term memory: Evidence from semantic dementia. Cognitive
Neuropsychology, 14, 1165-1216.
- Leclercq, A.-L., & Majerus, S. (2010). Serial-order short-term memory
predicts vocabulary development: Evidence from a longitudinal study.
Developmental Psychology, 46(2), 417-427.
- Majerus, S. (2013). Language repetition and short-term memory: An
integrative framework. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, doi:10.3389/
fnhum.2013.00357.
- Majerus, S. (2014). L’évaluation de la mémoire à court terme. In X.Seron
& M. Van der Linden (Eds.), Traité de Neuropsychologie Clinique - 2ème
édition (pp. 167-177). Paris: De Boeck - Solal.
- Majerus, S., Attout, L., Artielle, M.A., & Van der Kaa, M.A. (2015).
The heterogeneity of verbal short-term memory impairment in aphasia.
Neuropsychologia, 77, 165-176.
- Majerus, S., & Boukebza, C. (2013). Short-term memory for serial supports vocabulary development: new evidence from a novel word learning paradigm. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 116, 811-828.
- Majerus, S., Cowan, N., Van Calster, L., Péters, F., Phillips, C., & Schrouff,
J. (2016). Cross-modal decoding of neural patterns associated with working
memory: Evidence for attention-based accounts of working memory.
Cerebral Cortex, 26, 166-179.
- Majerus, S. & Van der Linden, M. (2003). The development of long-term
memory effects on verbal short-term memory : A replication study. British
Journal of Developmental Psychology, 21, 303-310.
- Majerus, S., Van der Linden, M., Mulder, L., Meulemans, T., & Peters, F.
(2004). Verbal short-term memory reflects the sublexical organization of the
phonological language network: Evidence from an incidental phonotactic
learning paradigm. Journal of Memory and Language, 51, 297-306.
- Majerus, S., Poncelet, M., Van der Linden, M., Albouy, G., Salmon, E.,
Sterpenich, V. et al. (2006a). The left intraparietal sulcus and verbal shortterm memory: Focus of attention or serial order? NeuroImage, 32, 880-891.
- Majerus, S., Norris, D., & Patterson, K. (2007). What do patients with
semantic dementia remember in verbal short-term memory? Sounds and
order but not words. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 24, 131-151.
- Majerus, S., Heiligenstein, L., Gautherot, N., Poncelet, M., & Van der
Linden, M. (2009). The impact of auditory selective attention on verbal
short-term memory and vocabulary development. Journal of Experimental
Child Psychology, 103, 66-86.
- Majerus, S., D’Argembeau, A., Martinez, T., Belayachi, S., Van der Linden,
M., Collette, F. et al. (2010). The commonality of neural networks for verbal
and visual short-term memory. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22, 2570-
2593.
- Majerus, S., Attout, L., D’Argembeau, A., Degueldre, C., Fias, W., Maquet,
P. et al. (2012b). Attention Supports Verbal Short-Term Memory via
Competition between Dorsal and Ventral Attention Networks. Cerebral
Cortex, 22, 1086-1097.
- Majerus, S., Martinez Perez, T., & Oberauer, K. (2012a). Two distinct origins
of long-term learning effects in verbal short-term memory. Journal of
- Memory and Language, 66, 38-51.
- Marshuetz, C., Smith, E.E., Jonides, J., DeGutis, J., & Chenevert, T.L.
(2000). Order information in working memory: fMRI evidence for parietal
and prefrontal mechanisms. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12, 130-144.
- Martin, N. & Saffran, E. M. (1992). A computational account of deep
dysphasia: Evidence from a single case study. Brain and Language, 43, 240-
274.
- Martinez Perez, T., Majerus, S., Mahot, A., & Poncelet, M. (2012b).
Evidence for a specific impairment of serial order short-term memory in
dyslexic children. Dyslexia, 18(2), 77-138.
- Martinez Perez, T., Majerus, S., & Poncelet, M. (2012a). The contribution
of short-term memory for serial order to early reading acquisition: Evidence
from a longitudinal study. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 111,
708-723.
- Martinez Perez, T., Majerus, S., & Poncelet, M. (2013). Impaired shortterm memory for order in adults with dyslexia. Research in Developmental
Disabilities, 34, 2211-2223.
- Mosse, E. K. & Jarrold, C. (2008). Hebb learning, verbal short-term memory,
and the acquisition of phonological forms in children. Quarterly Journal of
Experimental Psychology, 61, 505-514.
- Nairne, J. S. & Kelley, M. R. (2004). Separating item and order information
through process dissociation. Journal of Memory and Language, 50, 113-
133.
- Nakayama, M., Tanida, Y., & Saito, S. (2015). Long-Term Phonological
Knowledge Supports Serial Ordering in Working Memory. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition (41, 1570-
1578). http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038825
- Patterson, K.E., Graham, N., & Hodges, J.R. (1994). The impact of semantic
memory loss on phonological representations. Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience, 6, 57-69.
- Poirier, M. & Saint-Aubin, J. (1996). Immediate serial recall, word
frequency, item identity and item position. Canadian Journal of Experimental
Psychology, 50, 408-412.
- Poncelet, M., & Van der Linden, M. (2003). L’évaluation du stock
phonologique de la mémoire de travail: élaboration d’une épreuve de répétition
de non-mots pour population francophone. Revue de Neuropsychologie, 13,
3, 375-405.
- Todd, J. J. & Marois, R. (2004). Capacity limit of visual short-term memory
in human posterior parietal cortex. Nature, 428, 751-754.
- Van Dijck, J.P., Abrahamse, E.L., Majerus, S., & Fias, W. (2013). Spatial
attention interacts with serial order retrieval from verbal working memory.
Psychological Science, 24, 1854-1859
the answer in space: the mental whiteboard hypothesis on serial order in
working memory. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, doi: 10.3389/
fnhum.2014.00932.
- Attout, L., Noël, M.P., & Majerus, S. (2014). The relationship between
working memory for serial order and numerical development: a longitudinal
study. Developmental Psychology, 50, 1667-1679.
- Attout, L., Van der Kaa, M. A., George, M., & Majerus, S. (2012). Dissociating
short-term memory and language impairment: The importance of item and
serial order information. Aphasiology, 26, 355-382.
- Baddeley, A.,Gathercole, S., & Papagno, C. (1998). The phonological loop
as a language learning device. Psychological Review, 105, 158-173.
- Baddeley, A. D. & Hitch, G. J. (1974). Working memory. In G.H.Bower
(Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation (pp. 47-90). San Diego,
CA: Academic Press.
- Barrouillet, P., Bernardin, S., & Camos, V. (2004). Time constraints and
resource sharing in adults’ working memory spans. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, 133, 83-100.
- Brown, G. D. A., Preece, T., & Hulme, C. (2000). Oscillator-based memory
for serial order. Psychological Review, 107, 127-181.
- Burgess, N. & Hitch, G. J. (1999). Memory for serial order: A network
model of the phonological loop and its timing. Psychological Review, 106,
551-581.
- Burgess, N. & Hitch, G. J. (2006). A revised model of short-term memory and
long-term learning of verbal sequences. Journal of Memory and Language,
55, 627-652.
- Cowan, N. (1995). Attention and memory: An integrated framework. New
York: Oxford University Press.
- Engle, R. W., Kane, M. J., & Tuholski, S. W. (1999). Individual differences
in working memory capacity and what they tell us about controlled attention,
general fluid intelligence, and functions of the prefrontal cortex. In A.Miyake
& P. Shah (Eds.), Models of working memory: Mechanisms of active
maintenance and executive control (pp. 102-134). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
- Farrell, S. & Lewandowsky, S. (2002). An endogenous distributed model of
ordering in serial recall. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review,9, 59-79
Fiebach, C. J., Friederici, A. D., Smith, E. E., & Swinney, D. (2007). Lateral
Inferotemporal Cortex Maintains Conceptual–Semantic Representations in
Verbal Working Memory. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19, 2035-
2049.
- Gathercole, S., & Baddeley, A. (1993). Phonological working memory: A
critical building block for reading development and vocabulary acquisition?
European Journal of Psychology of Education, 8 (3), 259-272.
- Gathercole, S. E., Frankish, C. R., Pickering, S. J., & Peaker, S. (1999).
Phonotactic influences on short-term memory. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 25, 84-95.
- Gupta, P.,& MacWhinney, B.(1997). Vocabulary acquisition and verbal
short-term memory: computational and neural bases. Brain and Language,
59, 267-333.
- Henson, R. N. A. (1998). Short-term memory for serial order: the start-end
model. Cognitive Psychology, 36, 73-137.
- Hulme, C., Maughan, S., & Brown, G. D. (1991). Memory for familiar and
unfamiliar words: Evidence for a long-term memory contribution to shortterm memory span. Journal of Memory and Language, 30, 685-701.
- Hurlstone, M. J., Hitch, G. J., & Baddeley, A. D. (2014). Memory for serial
order across domains: An overview of the literature and directions for future
research. Psychological Bulletin, 140(2), 339-373.
- Knott, R., Patterson, K., & Hodges, J.R.(1997). Lexical and semantic binding
effects in short-term memory: Evidence from semantic dementia. Cognitive
Neuropsychology, 14, 1165-1216.
- Leclercq, A.-L., & Majerus, S. (2010). Serial-order short-term memory
predicts vocabulary development: Evidence from a longitudinal study.
Developmental Psychology, 46(2), 417-427.
- Majerus, S. (2013). Language repetition and short-term memory: An
integrative framework. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, doi:10.3389/
fnhum.2013.00357.
- Majerus, S. (2014). L’évaluation de la mémoire à court terme. In X.Seron
& M. Van der Linden (Eds.), Traité de Neuropsychologie Clinique - 2ème
édition (pp. 167-177). Paris: De Boeck - Solal.
- Majerus, S., Attout, L., Artielle, M.A., & Van der Kaa, M.A. (2015).
The heterogeneity of verbal short-term memory impairment in aphasia.
Neuropsychologia, 77, 165-176.
- Majerus, S., & Boukebza, C. (2013). Short-term memory for serial supports vocabulary development: new evidence from a novel word learning paradigm. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 116, 811-828.
- Majerus, S., Cowan, N., Van Calster, L., Péters, F., Phillips, C., & Schrouff,
J. (2016). Cross-modal decoding of neural patterns associated with working
memory: Evidence for attention-based accounts of working memory.
Cerebral Cortex, 26, 166-179.
- Majerus, S. & Van der Linden, M. (2003). The development of long-term
memory effects on verbal short-term memory : A replication study. British
Journal of Developmental Psychology, 21, 303-310.
- Majerus, S., Van der Linden, M., Mulder, L., Meulemans, T., & Peters, F.
(2004). Verbal short-term memory reflects the sublexical organization of the
phonological language network: Evidence from an incidental phonotactic
learning paradigm. Journal of Memory and Language, 51, 297-306.
- Majerus, S., Poncelet, M., Van der Linden, M., Albouy, G., Salmon, E.,
Sterpenich, V. et al. (2006a). The left intraparietal sulcus and verbal shortterm memory: Focus of attention or serial order? NeuroImage, 32, 880-891.
- Majerus, S., Norris, D., & Patterson, K. (2007). What do patients with
semantic dementia remember in verbal short-term memory? Sounds and
order but not words. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 24, 131-151.
- Majerus, S., Heiligenstein, L., Gautherot, N., Poncelet, M., & Van der
Linden, M. (2009). The impact of auditory selective attention on verbal
short-term memory and vocabulary development. Journal of Experimental
Child Psychology, 103, 66-86.
- Majerus, S., D’Argembeau, A., Martinez, T., Belayachi, S., Van der Linden,
M., Collette, F. et al. (2010). The commonality of neural networks for verbal
and visual short-term memory. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22, 2570-
2593.
- Majerus, S., Attout, L., D’Argembeau, A., Degueldre, C., Fias, W., Maquet,
P. et al. (2012b). Attention Supports Verbal Short-Term Memory via
Competition between Dorsal and Ventral Attention Networks. Cerebral
Cortex, 22, 1086-1097.
- Majerus, S., Martinez Perez, T., & Oberauer, K. (2012a). Two distinct origins
of long-term learning effects in verbal short-term memory. Journal of
- Memory and Language, 66, 38-51.
- Marshuetz, C., Smith, E.E., Jonides, J., DeGutis, J., & Chenevert, T.L.
(2000). Order information in working memory: fMRI evidence for parietal
and prefrontal mechanisms. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12, 130-144.
- Martin, N. & Saffran, E. M. (1992). A computational account of deep
dysphasia: Evidence from a single case study. Brain and Language, 43, 240-
274.
- Martinez Perez, T., Majerus, S., Mahot, A., & Poncelet, M. (2012b).
Evidence for a specific impairment of serial order short-term memory in
dyslexic children. Dyslexia, 18(2), 77-138.
- Martinez Perez, T., Majerus, S., & Poncelet, M. (2012a). The contribution
of short-term memory for serial order to early reading acquisition: Evidence
from a longitudinal study. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 111,
708-723.
- Martinez Perez, T., Majerus, S., & Poncelet, M. (2013). Impaired shortterm memory for order in adults with dyslexia. Research in Developmental
Disabilities, 34, 2211-2223.
- Mosse, E. K. & Jarrold, C. (2008). Hebb learning, verbal short-term memory,
and the acquisition of phonological forms in children. Quarterly Journal of
Experimental Psychology, 61, 505-514.
- Nairne, J. S. & Kelley, M. R. (2004). Separating item and order information
through process dissociation. Journal of Memory and Language, 50, 113-
133.
- Nakayama, M., Tanida, Y., & Saito, S. (2015). Long-Term Phonological
Knowledge Supports Serial Ordering in Working Memory. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition (41, 1570-
1578). http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038825
- Patterson, K.E., Graham, N., & Hodges, J.R. (1994). The impact of semantic
memory loss on phonological representations. Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience, 6, 57-69.
- Poirier, M. & Saint-Aubin, J. (1996). Immediate serial recall, word
frequency, item identity and item position. Canadian Journal of Experimental
Psychology, 50, 408-412.
- Poncelet, M., & Van der Linden, M. (2003). L’évaluation du stock
phonologique de la mémoire de travail: élaboration d’une épreuve de répétition
de non-mots pour population francophone. Revue de Neuropsychologie, 13,
3, 375-405.
- Todd, J. J. & Marois, R. (2004). Capacity limit of visual short-term memory
in human posterior parietal cortex. Nature, 428, 751-754.
- Van Dijck, J.P., Abrahamse, E.L., Majerus, S., & Fias, W. (2013). Spatial
attention interacts with serial order retrieval from verbal working memory.
Psychological Science, 24, 1854-1859