Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-gs9qr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-30T21:13:39.847Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Phonological and visual similarity effects in Chinese and English language users: Implications for the use of cognitive resources in short-term memory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2010

RACHEL L. COLE  and
SUSAN J. PICKERING
RACHEL L. COLE*
Affiliation:
University College London
SUSAN J. PICKERING
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
*
Address for correspondence: Rachel L. Cole, Educational Psychology Group, Department of Psychology, University College London, 26 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AP, UKrachel.cole@kent.gov.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study investigated the encoding strategies employed by Chinese and English language users when recalling sequences of pictured objects. The working memory performance of native English participants (n = 14) and Chinese speakers of English as a second language (Chinese ESL; n = 14) was compared using serial recall of visually-presented pictures of familiar objects with three conditions: (i) phonologically and visually distinct, (ii) phonologically similar and visually distinct, and (iii) phonologically distinct and visually similar. Digit span, visual pattern span and articulation rate were also measured. Results indicated that whilst English participants were affected by the phonological but not the visual similarity of items, the performance of Chinese ESL participants was comparable across all three conditions. No significant differences in digit span, visual memory or articulation rate were found between groups. These results are discussed in the light of our understanding of the use of cognitive resources in short-term memory in users of diverse orthographies.

Keywords

bilingual language processingsecond language acquisitionworking memoryphonological similarity effectvisual similarity effect

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , October 2010 , pp. 499 - 512
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Baddeley, A. D. (1966). The influence of acoustic and semantic similarity on long-term memory for word sequences. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18, 203–209.Google Scholar
Baddeley, A. D. (2000). The episodic buffer: A new component of working memory? Trends in Cognitive Science, 4, 417–422.Google Scholar
Baddeley, A. D. (2002). Is working memory still working? European Psychologist, 7 (2), 85–97.Google Scholar
Baddeley, A. D. (2003). Working memory and language: An overview. Journal of Communication Disorders, 36, 189–208.Google Scholar
Baddeley, A. D., & Hitch, G. J. (1974). Working memory. In Bower, G. A. (ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation, pp. 47–89. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Baddeley, A. D., & Lieberman, K. (1980). Spatial working memory. In Nickerson, R. (ed.), Attention and performance VIII, pp. 521–540. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Baddeley, A. D., Thomson, N., & Buchanan, M. (1975). Word length and the structure of short-term memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 14, 575–589.Google Scholar
Baron, J., & Strawson, C. (1976). Use of orthographic and word-specific knowledge in reading words aloud. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2, 386–393.Google Scholar
Barry, C., Morrison, C. M., & Ellis, A. W. (1997). Naming the Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures: Effects of age of acquisition, frequency, and name agreement. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 50A (3), 560–585.Google Scholar
Bates, E., D'Amico, S., Jacobsen, T., Szekely, A., Andonova, E., Devescovi, A., Herron, D., Lu, D., Pechmann, T., Pleh, C., Wicha, N., Federmeier, K., Gerdjikova, I., Gutierrez, G., Hung, D., Iyer, G., Kohnert, K., Mehotcheva, T., Orozco-Figueroa, A., Tzeng, A., & Tzeng, O. (2003). Timed naming in seven languages. Psychometric Bulletin and Review, 10 (2), 344–380.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., Majumder, S., & Martin, M. M. (2003). Developing phonological awareness: Is there a bilingual advantage? Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 27–44.Google Scholar
Bond, M. H. (ed.) (1996). The handbook of Chinese psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brysbaert, M. (2003). Bilingual visual word recognition: Evidence from the masked priming effect. In Kinoshita & Lupker (eds.), pp. 323–344.Google Scholar
Chan, L., & Nunes, T. (1998). Children's understanding of the formal and functional characteristics of written Chinese. Applied Psycholinguistics, 19, 115–131.Google Scholar
Chee, M. W. L., Soon, C. S., & Lee, H. L. (2003). Common and segregated neuronal networks for different languages revealed using functional magnetic resonance adaptation. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15 (1), 85–97.Google Scholar
Chen, H. C. (1992). Reading comprehension in Chinese: Implications for character reading times. In Chen, H. C. & Tzeng, O. J. L. (eds.), Language processing in Chinese, pp. 175–205. Amsterdam: North Holland.Google Scholar
Chen, H. C. (1996). Chinese reading and comprehension: A cognitive psychology perspective. In Bond (ed.), pp. 43–62.Google Scholar
Chen, H. C., & Juola, J. F. (1982). Dimensions of lexical coding in Chinese and English. Memory and Cognition, 10, 216–224.Google Scholar
Chen, H. C., & Tsoi, K. C. (1990). Symbol–word interference in Chinese and English. Acta Psychologica, 75, 123–138.Google Scholar
Chen, X., & Kao, H. S. R. (2002). Visual-spatial properties and orthographic processing of Chinese characters. In Kao et al. (eds.), pp. 175–194.Google Scholar
Cheung, H. (1999). Improving phonological awareness and word reading in a later learned alphabetic script. Cognition, 70 (1), 1–26.Google Scholar
Chua, F. K. (1999). Phonological recoding in Chinese logograph recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 25, 876–891.Google Scholar
Conant, L. L., Fastenau, P. S., Giordani, B., Boivin, M. J., Chounramany, C., Xaisada, S., Choulamountary, L., Pholsena, P., & Olness, K. (1997). Relationships among memory span tasks: A cross-cultural developmental perspective. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Chicago, IL. The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 11, 304.Google Scholar
Conant, L. L., Fastenau, P. S., Giordani, B., Boivin, M. J., Chounramany, C., Xaisada, S., Chounramany, L., & Pholsena, P. (2003). Environmental influences on primary memory development: A cross-cultural study of memory span in Lao and American children. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 25 (8), 1102–1116.Google Scholar
Conant, L. L., Fasternau, P. S., Giordani, B., Boivin, M. J., Opel, B., & Nseyila, D. (1999). Modality specificity of memory span tasks among Zairian children: A developmental perspective. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 21, 375–384.Google Scholar
Conrad, R., & Hull, A. J. (1964). Information, acoustic confusion and memory span. British Journal of Psychology, 55, 429–432.Google Scholar
Courtney, S. M., Petit, L., Maisog, J. M., Ungerleider, L. G., & Haxby, J. V. (1998). An area specialized for spatial working memory in human frontal cortex. Science, 279, 1347–1351.Google Scholar
Davis, C. W., Kim, J., & Sanchez-Casas, R. M. (2003). Masked priming across languages: An insight into bilingual lexical processing. In Kinoshita & Lupker (eds.), pp. 309–322.Google Scholar
Della Sala, S., Gray, C., Baddeley, A., & Wilson, L. (1997). Visual Patterns Test: A test of short-term visual recall. Bury St Edmunds: Thames Valley Test Company.Google Scholar
Demetriou, A., Zhang, X. K., Spanoudis, G., Christou, C., Kyriakides, L., & Platsidou, M. (2005). The architecture, dynamics and development of mental processing: Greek, Chinese or universal? Intelligence, 33, 109–141.Google Scholar
Denckla, M. B., & Rudel, R. G. (1976). Rapid “automatized” naming (RAM): Dyslexia differentiated from other learning disabilities. Neuropsychologia, 14 (4), 471–479.Google Scholar
D'Esposito, M., Detre, J. A., Alsop, D. C., Shin, R. K, Atlas, S., & Grossman, M. (1995). The neural basis of the central executive system of working memory. Nature, 378, 279–281.Google Scholar
Ding, Z., & Peng, D. (1998). English phonological awareness of Chinese children and spelling. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 30 (3), 248–253.Google Scholar
Fastenau, P. S., Conant, L. L., & Lauer, R. E. (1998). Working memory in young children: Evidence for modality specificity and implications for cerebral reorganisation in early childhood. Neuropsychologia, 36 (7), 643–652.Google Scholar
Ferrand, L. (1999). Why naming takes longer than reading: The special case of Arabic numbers. Acta Psychologica, 100 (3), 253–266.Google Scholar
Flaherty, M. (2003). Sign language and characters on visuospatial memory: A literature review. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 97 (3, pt. 1), 797–802.Google Scholar
Forster, K. I., & Jiang, N. (2001). The nature of the bilingual lexicon: Experiments with the masked priming paradigm. In Nicol, J. L. (ed.), One mind, two languages: Bilingual language processing, pp. 72–83. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Gathercole, S., & Baddeley, A. D. (1993). Working memory and language. Hove: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Goswami, U. (2000). Phonological representations, reading development and dyslexia: Towards a cross-linguistic theoretical framework. Dyslexia, 6, 133–151.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. S., Hitch, G. J., Lennon, B., & Pettipher, C. (1990). Verbal short-term memory in children: The role of the articulatory loop. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2 (1), 23–38.Google Scholar
Hedden, T., Park, D. C., Nisbett, R., Ji, L. J., Jing, Q., & Jiao, S. (2002). Cultural variations in verbal versus spatial neuropsychological function across the life span. Neuropsychology, 16 (1), 65–73.Google Scholar
Hitch, G. J., Halliday, M. S., Dodd, A., & Littler, J. E. (1989). Development of rehearsal in short-term memory: Differences between pictorial and spoken stimuli. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 7, 347–362.Google Scholar
Hitch, G. J., Halliday, M. S., Schaafstal, A., & Heffernan, T. M. (1991). Speech, ‘inner-speech’ and the development of short-term memory: Effects of picture labelling on recall. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 51, 220–234.Google Scholar
Hitch, G. J., Halliday, M. S., Schaafstal, A., & Schraagen, J. M. (1988). Visual working memory in children. Memory and cognition, 16, 120–132.Google Scholar
Ho, C. S. H., & Bryant, P. (1997). Learning to read Chinese beyond the logographic phase. Reading Research Quarterly, 32 (3), 276–289.Google Scholar
Ho, C. S. H., Ng, T. T., & Ng, W. K. (2003). A ‘radical’ approach to reading development in Chinese: The role of semantic radicals and phonetic radicals. Journal of Literary Research, 35 (3), 849–878.Google Scholar
Holm, A., & Dodd, B. (1996). The effect of first written language on the acquisition of English literacy. Cognition, 59, 119–147.Google Scholar
Honorof, D. N., & Feldman, L. (2006). The Chinese character in psycholinguistic research: Form, structure and the reader. In P. Li et al. (eds.), pp. 195–208.Google Scholar
Hoosain, R. (2002). Speed of getting at the phonology and meaning of Chinese words. In Kao et al. (eds.), pp. 129–142.Google Scholar
Huang, H. S., & Hanley, J. R. (1994). Phonological awareness and visual skills in learning to read Chinese and English. Cognition, 54, 73–98.Google Scholar
Huang, H. S., & Hanley, J. R. (1997). A longitudinal study of phonological awareness, visual skills and Chinese reading acquisition among first-graders in Taiwan. International Journal of Behavioural Development, 20, 249–268.Google Scholar
Huang, J. T. (1996). Visual perception in Chinese people. In Bond (ed.), pp. 15–29.Google Scholar
Hung, D. L., & Tzeng, O. J. (1981). Orthographic variations and visual information processing. Psychological Bulletin, 90, 377–414.Google Scholar
Jackson, N. E., Chen, H. C., Goldsberry, N., Kim, A., & Vanderwerff, C. (1999). Effects of variations in orthographic information on Asian and American readers’ English text reading. Reading and Writing, 11, 345–379.Google Scholar
Jackson, N. E., Lu, W. H., & Ju, D. (1994). Reading Chinese and reading English: Similarities, differences and second language reading. In Berninger, V. W. (ed.), The varieties of orthographic knowledge: Theoretical and developmental issues (Neuropsychology and Cognition 1), pp. 73–109. New York: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Jensen, A. R. (1998). The G factor: The science of mental ability. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Kao, H. S. R., Leong, C. K., & Gao, D. G. (eds.) (2002). Cognitive neuroscience studies of the Chinese language. Aberdeen & Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.Google Scholar
Kinoshita, S., & Lupker, S. J. (eds.) (2003). Masked priming: The state of the art. New York & Hove: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Koda, K. (1988). Effects of L1 orthographic representation on L2 phonological coding strategies. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 18 (2), 201–222.Google Scholar
Kuo, W. J., Yeh, T. C., Duann, J. R., Wu, T. T., Ho, L. T., Hung, D., Tzeng, O. J. L., & Hseih, J. C. (2001). A left-lateralized network for reading Chinese words: A 3 T fMRI study. NeuroReport, 12 (18), 3997–4001.Google Scholar
Law, S. P., Weekes, B. S., & Wong, A. (2006). Naming of real and pseudo-characters with free-standing and non-free-standing phonetic radicals by Cantonese dyslexic students. Brain and Language, 99 (1–2), 29–30.Google Scholar
Lee, C. Y., Tsai, J. L., Huang, H. W., Hung, D. L., & Tzeng, O. J. L. (2006). The temporal signatures of semantic and phonological activations for Chinese sublexical processing: An event-related potential study. Brain Research, 1121 (1), 150–159.Google Scholar
Lee, T. M. C., & Chan, C. C. H. (2000). Stroop interference in Chinese and English. Journal of Experimental and Clinical Neuropsychology. 22, 465–471.Google Scholar
Leong, C. K. (2002). Segmental analysis and reading in Chinese. In Kao et al. (eds.), pp. 227–246.Google Scholar
Leong, C. K., & Hsia, S. (1996). Cross linguistic constraints on Chinese students learning English. In Bond (ed.), pp. 63–78.Google Scholar
Leong, C. K., Tan, L. H., Cheng, P. W., & Hau, K. T. (2005). Learning to read and spell English words by Chinese students. Scientific Studies of Reading, 9 (1), 63–84.Google Scholar
Li, D., Liu, C., & Li, C. (2003). Development in digit working memory span across the life span and its influential factors. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 35 (1), 63–68.Google Scholar
Li, P., Tan, L. H., Bates, E., & Tzeng, O. J. L. (eds.) (2006). The handbook of East Asian psycholinguistics (vol. 1): Chinese. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lian, A., Karlse, P. J., & Eriksen, T. B. (2004). Opposing effect of phonological similarity on item and order memory of words and nonwords in the serial recall task. Memory, 12 (3), 314–337.Google Scholar
Liu, X., Liu, X., & Xu, X. (2004). Comparative study of visual memory of reading disabled and normal children. Chinese Journal of Clinical Psychology, 12 (3), 246–249.Google Scholar
Logie, R. H. (1986). Visuospatial processing in working memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38A, 229–247.Google Scholar
Longoni, A. M., & Scalisi, T. G. (1994). Developmental aspects of phonemic and visual similarity effects: Further evidence in Italian children. International Journal of Behavioural Development, 17, 57–71.Google Scholar
Lynn, R. (2003). The geography of intelligence. In Nyborg, H. (ed.), The scientific study of human intelligence: Tribute to Arthur R Jensen, pp. 127–146. Amsterdam: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Matthews, P. M., Fu, S., Chen, Y. P., & Iversen, S. (2002). Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging: A promising tool for defining the organisation of Chinese Language in the brain. In Kao et al. (eds.), pp. 61–72.Google Scholar
Miller, G. A., Galanter, E., & Pribram, K. H. (1960). Plans and the structure of behaviour. New York: Henry Holt and Co.Google Scholar
Palmer, S. (2000). Working memory: A developmental study of phonological recoding. Memory, 8, 179–193.Google Scholar
Pearson, D. (2001). Imagery and the visuo-spatial sketchpad. In Andrade, J. (ed.), Working memory in perspective, pp. 33–59. Hove & New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Perfetti, C. A., & Liu, Y. (2006). Reading Chinese characters: Orthography, phonology, meaning and the Lexical Constituency Model. In P. Li et al. (eds.), pp. 225–236.Google Scholar
Perfetti, C. A., Liu, Y., & Tan, L. H. (2002). How the mind can meet the brain in reading: a comparative writing systems approach. In Kao et al. (eds.), pp. 35–59.Google Scholar
Pickering, S. J. (2001). The development of visuo-spatial working memory. Memory, 9, 423–432.Google Scholar
Pickering, S. J., & Gathercole, S. (2001). Working Memory Test Battery for Children. London: Psychological Cooperation Europe.Google Scholar
Poldrack, R. A., Wagner, A. D., Prull, M. W., Desmond, J. E., Glover, G. H., & Gabrieli, J. D. (2001). Functional specialization for semantic and phonological processing in the left inferior prefrontal cortex. NeuroImage, 10, 15–35.Google Scholar
Quinn, J. G., & McConnell, J. (1996). Irrelevant pictures in visual working memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Experimental Psychology, 49A (1), 200–215.Google Scholar
Reber, A. S., & Reber, E. S. (2001). The Penguin dictionary of psychology (3rd edn.). London & New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Schacter, D. L. (1999). The seven sins of memory: Insights from psychology and cognitive neuroscience. American Psychologist, 54, 182–203.Google Scholar
Sevald, C. A., & Dell, G. S. (1994). The sequential cueing effect in speech production. Cognition, 53, 91–127.Google Scholar
Shen, L., Hu, X., Yacoub, E., & Ugurbil, K. (1999). Neural correlates of visual form and visual spatial processing. Human Brain mapping, 8, 60–71.Google Scholar
Shu, H., & Anderson, R. C. (1999). Learning to read Chinese: The development of metalinguistic awareness. In Wang et al. (eds.), pp. 1–18.Google Scholar
Shu, H., Chen, X., Anderson, R. C., Wu, N., & Xuan, Y. (2003). Properties of school Chinese: Implications for learning to read. Child Development, 74, 27–47.Google Scholar
Simos, P. G., Breier, J. I., Fletcher, J. M., Foorman, B. R., Castillo, E. M., & Papanicolaou, A. C. (2002). Brain mechanisms for reading words and pseudowords: An integrated approach. Cerebral Cortex, 12, 297–305.Google Scholar
Siok, W. T., Perfetti, C. A., Jin, Z., & Tan, L. H. (2004). Biological abnormality of impaired reading is constrained by culture. Nature, 431, 71–76.Google Scholar
Smythe, I., Everatt, J., Gyarmathy, E., Ho, C. S. H., & Groeger, J. A. (2003). Short-term memory and literacy: A cross language comparison. Educational and Child Psychology, 20 (3), 37–50.Google Scholar
Snodgrass, J. G., & Vanderwart, M. (1980). A standardized set of 260 pictures: Norms for name and image agreement, familiarity, and visual complexity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6, 174–215.Google Scholar
Tan, L. H., Liu, H. M., Perfetti, C. A., Spinks, J. A., Fox, P. T., & Gao, J. H. (2001). The neural system underlying Chinese logograph reading. NeuroImage, 13, 836–846.Google Scholar
Tan, L. H., Spinks, J. A., Feng, C. M., Siok, W. T., Perfetti, C. A., Xiong, J., Fox, P. T., & Gao, J. H. (2003). Neural systems of second language reading are shaped by native language. Human Brain Mapping, 18 (3), 158–166.Google Scholar
Tan, L. H., Spinks, J. A., Gao, J. H., Liu, H. L, Perfetti, C. A., Xiong, J., Pu, Y., Liu, Y., Stofer, K. A., & Fox, P. T. (2000). Brain activation in the processing of Chinese characters and words: A functional MRI study. Human Brain Mapping, 10, 27–39.Google Scholar
Tavassoli, N. T. (2002). Spatial memory for Chinese and English. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33 (4), 415–431.Google Scholar
Van Wijnendaele, I., & Brysbaert, M. (2002). Visual word recognition in bilinguals: Phonological priming from the second to the first language. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 28 (3), 616–627.Google Scholar
Vitevitch, M. S. (2002). The influence of phonological similarity neighbourhoods on speech production. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 28 (4), 735–747.Google Scholar
Wang, J., Inhoff, A. W., & Chen, H. C. (eds.) (1999). Reading Chinese script: A cognitive analysis. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Wang, M., & Geva, E. (2003). Spelling performance of Chinese children using English as a second language: Lexical and visual-orthographic processes. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24 (1), 1–25.Google Scholar
Wang, M., Koda, K., & Perfetti, C. A. (2003). Alphabetic and nonalphabetic L1 effects in English word identification: A comparison of Korean and Chinese English learners. Cognition, 87 (2), 129–149.Google Scholar
Yoon, C., Feinberg, F., Luo, T., Hedden, T., Gutchess, A. H., Chen, H. Y. M., Mijels, J. A., Jiao, S., & Park, D. C. (2004). A cross-culturally standardized set of pictures for younger and older adults: American and Chinese norms for name agreement, concept agreement and familiarity. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments and Computers, 36 (4), 639–649.Google Scholar
Zhang, S., & Perfetti, C. A. (1993). The tongue-twister effect in reading Chinese. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 19 (5), 1082–1093.Google Scholar
Zhou, X., Shu, H., Bi, Y., & Shi, D. (1999). Is there phonologically mediated access to lexical semantics in reading Chinese? In Wang et al. (eds.), pp. 135–171.Google Scholar