Animacy effects extend to working memory: results from serial order recall tasks

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Memory Research

Background:

• Animate words are recalled more accurately than inanimate words from long-term memory.
• The animacy effect's presence in working memory (WM) remains largely unexplored.
• Understanding animacy's role in WM is crucial for memory models.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if the animacy effect influences working memory recall.
• To examine the role of maintenance strategies like rehearsal and directed attention in the animacy effect.
• To determine how set size impacts the animacy effect in serial recall tasks.

Main Methods:

• Participants performed serial order recall tasks with sets of 3 to 6 animate or inanimate words.
• Experiment 1 involved varying instructions (no instructions, rehearsal, directed attention).
• Experiment 2 included articulatory suppression to assess rehearsal independence.

Main Results:

• Significant animacy effects were observed for set sizes 4, 5, and 6, but not for set size 3.
• The animacy effect was most pronounced at set size 5.
• The magnitude of the animacy effect decreased as set size increased from 4 to 6.
• The animacy effect was present regardless of articulatory suppression, suggesting it's not rehearsal-dependent.

Conclusions:

• Animacy enhances serial recall in working memory.
• The animacy effect in WM is dependent on set size, emerging at 4+ items.
• The findings suggest animacy's influence on WM recall is independent of subvocal rehearsal.