Short-term memory for phonemically similar lists.

A number of recent studies indicate that short-term memory for letters, digits, and words uses an auditory or speech-motor code. Conrad and Wickelgren have shown that errors in short-term recall of verbal lists tend to have a vowel or consonant phoneme in common with the correct item.' Perceptual errors were eliminated from these data by slow visual presentation or scoring of only items copied correctly during presentation. Proactive and retroactive interference in short-term recall are greater for interference lists consisting of letters that have a vowel phoneme in common with the correct letter(s) in the original list than for interference letters that have no phoneme in common with the correct letter(s).2 Finally, lists of letters that are often confused with each other in auditory recognition are more difficult to recall than lists of letters that are rarely confused with each other in auditory recognition.8 The former letters tend to have phonemes in common, while the latter letters tend to have no common phonemes.