The relations between reading time and memory span were studied in four languages: English, Spanish, Hebrew, and Arabic. Reading rate was measured either in speeded reading of digits or in normal-pace reading of stories. Faster speeded reading and normal-pace reading rates for a given language were associated with larger memory span for speakers of that language. These relations, which were shown to be monotonically related to the number of syllables or phonemes per item, extend the within-language word-length effect reported by Baddeley, Thomson and Buchanan (1975), across languages. In addition, these findings demonstrate a form of linguistic relativity: a relation between simple surface-structural features of language (number of syllables) and cognitive processing (memory span and reading rate). It is argued that this linguistic relativity may be limited by trade-offs between surface features and common linguistic practice.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AyresT. J. (1984). Silent reading time for tongue-twister paragraphs. American Journal of Psychology97, (4)605–609.
2.
BaddeleyA. D. (1983). Working memory. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B302, 311–324.
3.
BaddeleyA. D.HitchG. J. (1974). Working memory. BowerG.The psychology of learning and motivation.New York: Academic PressVol. VIII, 47–90.
4.
BaddeleyA. D.LewisV.VallarG. (1984). Exploring the articulatory loop. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology36A, 233–252.
5.
BaddeleyA. D.ThomsonN.BuchananM. (1975). Word length and the structure of short-term memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior14, 575–589.
6.
BartlettF. C. (1932). Remembering: A study of experimental and social psychologyCambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
7.
BellugiU.FischerS. A. (1972). A comparison of sign language and spoken language. Cognition1, 173–200.
8.
BelmontJ. M.KarchmerM. A. (1978). Deaf people's memory: There are problems testing special populations. GrunebergM.MorrisP.SykesR.Practical aspects of memory.London: Academic Press581–588.
9.
BloomA. H. (1981). The linguistic shaping of thoughtHillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
10.
CaseR. D.KurlandM.GoldbergJ. (1982). Operational efficiency and the growth of short-term memory span. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology33, 386–404.
11.
DaftuarC. N. (1977). The role of human factors engineering in underdeveloped countries, with special reference to India. ChapanisA.Ethnic variables in human factors engineering.Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.
12.
DempsterF. N. (1981). Memory span: Sources of individual and developmental differences. Psychological Bulletin89, (1)63–100.
13.
EllisN. C.HennellyR. A. (1980). A bilingual word-length effect: Implications for intelligence testing and the relative ease of mental calculation in Welsh and English. British Journal of Psychology71, 43–51.
14.
HaberL. R.HaberR. N. (1982). Does silent reading involve articulation? Evidence from tongue twisters. American Journal of Psychology93, (3)409–419.
15.
HoosainR. (1979). Forward and backward digit span in the languages of the bilingual. The Journal of Genetic Psychology135, 263–268.
16.
HoosainR. (1982). Correlation between pronunciation speed and digit span size. Perceptual and Motor Skills55, 1128.
17.
HoosainR. (1983). Experiments on digit spans in the Chinese and English languages Unpublished.
18.
HulmeC.ThomsonN.MuirC.LawrenceA. (1984). Speech rate and the development of short-term memory span. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology38, 241–253.
19.
LennebergE. (1967). Biological Foundations of LanguageNew York: Wiley.
20.
MillerG. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits to our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review63, 81–97.
21.
MillerG. A.ChomskyN. (1963). Finitary models of language users. LuceR. D.BushR. R.GalanterE.Handbook of mathematical psychology.New York: Wiley.
22.
MillerG. A.NewmanE. B. (1958). Tests of a statistical explanation of the rank–frequency relation for words in written English. American Journal of Psychology71, 209–258.
23.
PuckettJ. M.KauslerD. H. (1984). Individual differences and models of memory span: A role for memory search rate. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition10, 72–82.
24.
StandingL.BondB.SmithP.IselyC. (1980). Is the immediate memory span determined by subvocalization rate?. British Journal of Psychology71, 525–539.
25.
SuppesP.HymanL.JermanM. (1967). SuppesP.Computer assisted education.New York: Random House.
26.
TzengO.HungD. (1981). Linguistic determinism: A written language perspective. TzengO.SingerH.Perception of print.Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
27.
WangW. (1981). Language structure and optimal orthography. TzengO.SingerH.Perception of print.Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
28.
WhorfB. L. (1956). Language, thought and realityCambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
