Developmental Aspects of Phonemic and Visual Similarity Effects: Further Evidence in Italian Children

Abstract

Phonemic and visual similarity effects were investigated in Italian children of different ages. In Experiment 1, two groups of children (mean age 5;1 and 10;3 years) were asked to recall either pictures of common objects with phonemically similar or dissimilar names, or the spoken names of the pictures. Although a similarity effect was present in older children for both words and drawings, in younger children only a tendency in the expected direction occurred. The lack of a phonemic similarity effect for spoken words was attributed to the presence of a ceiling effect. In addition, results showed a significant superior recall for words in younger children and for drawings in older ones. An additional group of 5-year-old children was tested, increasing the list length to four items. Results indicated a significant similarity effect for words but not for drawings, together with a superior recall for words. These findings, in agreement with previous results, suggest that phonological memory traces contribute to performance of younger children only when material to be recalled is in the auditory modality, whereas in older children phonological coding is independent in the input modality. In Experiment 2 the performance of 5-and 10-year-old children was compared for immediate recall of two different sets of visually similar and dissimilar drawings. Results showed a significant effect of visual similarity in younger children only, for both sets of drawings, extending previously obtained results (e.g. Hitch, Halliday, Schaaftal, & Scrhaagen, 1988) to different materials and to Italian subjects. In Experiment 3, the visual similarity effect was investigated with a delayed recall procedure in a 5-year-old group. Four delay intervals (0, 5, 10, 15 seconds) and two activities during delay (articulatory suppression and a tapping task) were considered. Results obtained indicated that the visual similarity effect is present at all delay intervals for both activities during delay; and are discussed in terms of alternative interpretations of the visual similarity effect.