Phonological Similarity Effects in Simple and Complex Word Spans

Memory span for a list of phonologically similar words is generally worse than memory span for a list of phonologically dissimilar words, a finding that is called the phonological similarity effect. This finding has often been cited as evidence for the use of phonological coding in short-term memory and working memory. However, some studies have demonstrated a reversal of the phonological similarity effect under certain conditions. One such condition is the use of more complex memory span tasks such as reading span. It has been suggested that sentence contexts may provide additional retrieval cues that may overcome the detrimental effects of phonological similarity. The present study examined this hypothesis by manipulating the sentence contexts of the reading span materials. No evidence showing phonological similarity facilitation was found; in fact, the standard phonological similarity decrement in recall was observed with high context sentences.