The word length effect in backward recall: the role of response modality

ABSTRACT

In immediate serial recall, it is well known that participants are better at recalling short rather than long words. This benchmark memory effect, known as word length effect, has been observed numerous times in forward recall. However, in backward recall, when participants are required to recall items in the reverse order, contradictory findings have been reported. For instance, in some studies, the word length effect was abolished in backward recall, whereas in others it was maintained. In the present study, we investigated the role of response modality in accounting for this discrepancy. Our results showed that in forward recall, the word length effect is unaffected by response modality. In backward recall with a manual response (click or written), the word length effect is as large as in forward recall. Critically, when participants recalled a word orally, the word length effect was severely reduced in backward recall. We concluded that response modality interacts with the processes called upon in backward recall.

KEYWORDS:

• Backward recall
• word length effect
• response modality
• short-term ordered recall
• item and order hypothesis

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by discovery grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to Jean Saint-Aubin and Katherine Guérard. While working on this manuscript, Olivia Beaudry and Dominic Guitard were supported by a graduate scholarship from NSERC, and Myriam Pâquet was supported by an NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award. Thanks are due to Julie Bryar for the assistance in running the experiments. The data are available on the Open Science Framework project page (https://osf.io/k3uy9/?view_only=7c25a36b8b8a4f34a2f935ac7532679d).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.