Acoustic Imagery in Children's Phonetically Mediated Recall

Abstract

In previous work (Locke, in press) 4-yr.-old Ss who were presented pictorial stimuli recalled pictures whose labels rhymed more accurately than pictures with nonrhyming labels. Failure to observe similar list differences in the recall of 3- to 5-yr.-old children in other work (Conrad, in press) was attributed to an absence of speech mediation. The present study questioned whether young Ss' absence of phonetic mediation effects also was explainable as the result of a specific inability to match whatever acoustic images might be elicited by pictorial stimuli. Of the 20 Ss seen previously, 16 were seen again 24 days later, this time being asked to identify which of the task (pictorial) stimuli “sounded alike.” Ss with superior recall of pictures with rhyming labels also were significantly more accurate in identifying rhymes than Ss whose recalls of rhyming and nonrhyming series were essentially equal, suggesting that children's phonetic mediation may be a function, at least in part, of their ability to form acoustic (phonetic) images to nonphonetic stimuli and to detect similarities among the images.