ABSTRACT
In a series of short-term memory (STM) experiments, Conrad R. has shown that sequences of items which are hard to discriminate in noise are also hard to remember, even though presented visually. Analogous effects of intra-list similarity have also been shown in long-term memory (LTM), where several types of similarity have proved to be relevant including similarity of letter structure and of meaning. Experiment I compares the influence of acoustic similarity on ordered STM for word sequences with that of semantic similarity. Experiment II compares STM for sequences of words, which had a formal similarity but were pronounced differently, with acoustically similar, but formally dissimilar words and with control sequences. Experiment III replicates the acoustic similarity effect found in Experiment I, using visual instead of auditory presentation. All the three experiments agree in showing a large and consistent adverse effect of acoustic similarity on ordered STM for words.
