Journal
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
Volume 12, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.514886
Keywords
linguistic focus; memory accessibility; representation; probe recognition; working memory; delayed recognition
Categories
Funding
- New National Excellence Program of the Ministry for Innovation and Technology from the source of the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund [UNKP-20-4-II-BME-13]
- NKFI [K115544]
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This study investigates the memory accessibility and representation of focused elements and their alternatives in Hungarian pre-verbal focus construction in Working Memory and delayed recognition memory. Results show an advantage of focused element in immediate retrieval but not in delayed retrieval, with interference from focus alternatives affecting memory performance in delayed retrieval. The study is novel in examining the focus representation in different memory systems using the same stimuli and variables.
The present work investigates the memory accessibility of linguistically focused elements and the representation of the alternatives for these elements (i.e., their possible replacements) in Working Memory (WM) and in delayed recognition memory in the case of the Hungarian pre-verbal focus construction (preVf). In two probe recognition experiments we presented preVf and corresponding focusless neutral sentences embedded in five-sentence stories. Stories were followed by the presentation of sentence probes in one of three conditions: (i) the probe was identical to the original sentence in the story, (ii) the focused word (i.e., target) was replaced by a semantically related word and (iii) the target word was replaced by a semantically unrelated but contextually suitable word. In Experiment 1, probes were presented immediately after the stories measuring WM performance, while in Experiment 2, blocks of six stories were presented and sentences were probed with a 2-minute delay measuring delayed recognition memory performance. Results revealed an advantage of the focused element in immediate but not in delayed retrieval. We found no effect of sentence type on the recognition of the two different probe types in WM performance. However, results pertaining to the memory accessibility of focus alternatives in delayed retrieval showed an interference effect resulting in a lower memory performance. We conclude that this effect is indirect evidence for the enhanced activation of focus alternatives. The present work is novel in two respects. First, no study has been conducted on the memory representation of focused elements and their alternatives in the case of the structurally marked Hungarian pre-verbal focus construction. Second, to our knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the focus representation accounts for WM and delayed recognition memory using the same stimuli and same measured variables. Since both experiments used exactly the same stimulus set, and they only differed in terms of the timing of recognition probes, the principle of ceteris paribus fully applied with respect to how we addressed our research question regarding the two different memory systems.
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