Sequential syntactic knowledge supports item but not order recall in verbal working memory

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Psycholinguistics
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Lexico-semantic knowledge primarily influences verbal working memory (WM) item recall.
• The role of syntactic knowledge in serial-order recall within WM is under-researched and yields inconsistent findings.
• Previous research often used languages with rigid syntactic rules, limiting generalizability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of syntactic positional knowledge on both item and serial-order recall in verbal WM.
• To leverage the probabilistic nature of French syntax, specifically adjective placement, to test hypotheses about syntactic influence.
• To explore the relationship between syntactic processing and verbal WM performance.

Main Methods:

• Presented participants with lists of adjective-noun pairs for immediate serial recall.
• Manipulated the syntactic regularity of adjective positions (regular vs. irregular) relative to nouns in French.
• Analyzed recall performance for both item accuracy and serial order.

Main Results:

• Enhanced recall performance was observed when adjectives were in their regular syntactic position.
• This positive effect of syntactic regularity was significant for item recall.
• No significant effect of syntactic regularity was found on serial-order recall scores.

Conclusions:

• Syntactic knowledge influences verbal WM, primarily affecting item recall rather than serial order.
• The findings suggest an indirect role for syntactic knowledge in serial-order WM recall, mediated by item-retrieval processes.
• Integrating verbal WM and syntactic processing models is necessary to fully explain these observations.