Semantic feature effect in verbal short-term memory

The present study explored the influences of semantic features in immediate serial recall in order to further examine the involvement of semantic knowledge in short-term memory. The number of semantic features (NoF) was found to have a positive effect on short-term recall where high NoF words were remembered better than low NoF words (Experiment 1). This effect was replicated in a second experiment and was found to persist even after controlling for a potential confound (number of distinguishing features). It was further found that having more distinctive features facilitated recall performance of words whose representation was semantically poorer (Experiment 3). These results provide additional evidence of semantic influences in short-term memory and demonstrate that the organisation of semantic knowledge is reflected in short-term memory performance.