Evidence for dissociation of working memory for suprasegmental phonology and other suprasegmental features

摘要

A dual-task experiment was conducted to examine the independence of suprasegmental phonology and other suprasegmental features in working memory. The primary task was an auditory-verbal working memory task which required retention of both segmental and suprasegmental features. The secondary task which involved silent mouthing of irrelevant verbal material either without putative pitch change, with pitch accent, or with pseudo-pitch accent, was performed during the retention period of the primary task. The results revealed selective interference according to word distinctivity of speech stimuli, which suggests that suprasegmental phonology and other suprasegmental features are retained separately.