Does working memory change with age? The interactions of concurrent articulation with the effects of word length and acoustic confusion

ABSTRACT

The effects of acoustic confusion (phonological similarity), word length, and concurrent articulation (articulatory suppression) are cited as support for Working Memory's phonological loop component (e.g., Baddeley, 2000, Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 7, 544). Research has focused on younger adults, with no studies examining whether concurrent articulation reduces the word length and acoustic confusion effects among older adults. In the current study, younger and older adults were given lists of similar and dissimilar letters (Experiment 1) or long and short words (Experiment 2) for immediate serial reconstruction of order. Items were presented visually or auditorily, with or without concurrent articulation. As expected, younger and older adults demonstrated effects of acoustic confusion, word length, and concurrent articulation. Further, concurrent articulation reduced the effects of acoustic confusion and word length equally for younger and older adults. This suggests that age-related differences occur in overall performance, but do not reflect an age-related deficiency in the functioning of the phonological loop component of working memory.

Keywords:

• Aging
• Working memory
• Concurrent articulation
• Acoustic confusion
• Word length

Acknowledgments

We thank the research assistants in The Memory and Aging Lab (especially Stacey M. Diana and Vanessa Patel) at The College of New Jersey and in the Attention and Memory Lab at the University of West Florida for their assistance in data collection. We also thank the anonymous reviewers and action editor, Dr. Linas Bieliauskas, for their helpful comments on previous submissions of this manuscript. This research was funded, in part, by The College of New Jersey and the University of West Florida.

Notes

¹ The ‘overall’ ANOVA and all subsequent analyses involving older adults in Experiments 1 and 2 were run with and without older adults with low education levels (less than a high school degree) and with and without older adults missing vocabulary scores. The results of these analyses did not differ, and the results reported in the manuscript include all 40 of the older adults in each experiment.