The contribution to immediate serial recall of rehearsal, search speed, access to lexical memory, and phonological coding: an investigation at the construct level

Abstract

[Abstract]: Rehearsal speed has traditionally been seen to be the prime determinant of individual differences in memory span. Recent studies, in the main using young children as the participant population, have suggested other contributors to span performance, notably contributions from long-term memory and forgetting and retrieval processes occurring during recall. In the current research we used structural equation modelling to explore at the construct level individual differences in immediate serial recall with respect to rehearsal, search, and speed of access to lexical memory. We replicate standard short-term phenomena; we show that the variables that influence children's span performance influence adult performance in the same way; and we show that lexical memory access appears to be a more potent source of individual differences in immediate memory than either rehearsal speed or search factors.