Phonological Similarity of Word Lengths

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Word length effect is the finding that the longer the words are that people need to remember, the fewer they can remember (Baddeley, Thompaon & Buchanan, 1975). In our research findings, there are three hypotheses; including letters that sound similar will be remembered worse than words sound dissimilar. Long words are remembered worse than short words. With long words presumably being more subject to error than are short words. Longer words are assumed to take more time to articulate, hence allowing a greater degree of forgetting, either from trace decay or from interference (Baddeley, 2001). Words that took longer to pronounce were associated with a lower level of recall. Trace decay model an articulatory loop show that memory span is determined by rehearsal speed. However, longer words are subjected to poorer recall; there is no significant difference between the identification time within short words and long words (Lalor, 2000). Word frequency also contributes to memory span. Familiar words are more easily to remember than unfamiliar words. Word frequency’s contribution is not m...

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