Shared representations in language processing and verbal short-term memory: The case of grammatical gender

Abstract

The general idea of language-based accounts of short-term memory is that retention of linguistic materials is based on representations within the language processing system. In the present sentence recall study, we address the question whether the assumption of shared representations holds for morphosyntactic information (here: grammatical gender in German). Three experiments using a modified version of Potter and Lombardi’s (1990) intrusion paradigm tested whether the presentation of nouns similar in meaning to a noun included in a sentence led to more intrusions in sentence recall if the related nouns had the same grammatical gender as compared to a different gender. Indeed, morphosyntactic constraints resulted in weaker (or even no) intrusion effects for gender incongruent as compared to gender congruent intruders. This effect was observed independently of the degree to which phonological information was available during recall and independently of a determiner mismatch between the noun in the sentence and the incongruent intruder.