Syntactic and semantic structure in the recall of orders of approximation to English

Abstract

This study investigated the contribution of the syntactic, as opposed to semantic, component in the recall of orders of approximation to English. When recall was scored simply as number of words correctly recalled, it was found that differences in syntactic structure alone accounted for the observed increase in recall from the 1st order to the 2nd and 3rd. On the other hand, it was found that differences in semantic structure alone accounted for the observed increase beyond the 3rd order. It was further observed that, while semantic structure did not affect the total number of words recalled at the 2nd and 3rd orders, it did affect the length of correctly recalled sequences at all orders beyond the 1st. Further analysis indicated that syntactic and semantic structure facilitated recall primarily by enabling S s to group words into units or chunks of varying lengths, while the number of chunks recalled remains relatively constant.