JOURNAL OF VERBAL LEARNING AND VERBAL BEHAVIOR 10, 95-100 (1971)

Syntactical Encoding in Short-Term Memory

JOHN A. HEISEY AND CARL P. D U N C A N

Northwestern University, Evanston, llhnois 60201

Subjects learned and recalled lists of nonsense words presented without sentence structure,
or the same words embedded in key syntactical positions in actwe, passive, or interrogative
voice sentences, for three trials. On Trial 4, all Ss learned and recalled nonsense words pre-
sented in an active voice sentence. In all conditions (active, passwe, interrogative, word hst)
recall decreased, PI (proactive inhibition) increased, from Trial 1 to Trial 3. On Trial 4, the
group continuing with actwe voice showed further PI. The word hst group showed a high
degree of recovery from PI. The passive and mterrogatwe groups showed intermediate
amounts of recovery from PI. The recovery from PI when sentence structure was introduced,
or was changed from one voice to another, is taken to indicate use of syntax as an encoding
cue for recall.

Wickens (1970) developed a procedure for contents of sentences. The retention of a

studying verbal encoding which involves
build-up of and release from proactive inhibi-
tion (PI). The basic method typically consists
of presenting Ss with a number (usually three)
of words from the same class, then a retention
test, and so forth for three or four trials. For
m a n y encoding classes (semantic, acoustic,
grammatical, etc.), retention decreases, PI
builds up, over trials. I f a different class of
words is then presented, retention of the new
class is often higher than that of a control that
continues with the original class; there is some
release from PI.
In his review of studies using this procedure,
Wickens reported that some release from PI
had been found with all but one or two of some
14 different ways of encoding or classifying
verbal units. In another study, Sanders and
Schroots (1969) found varying amounts of
release from PI depending upon whether
consonants were followed by digits, tones, or
spatial positions.
An encoding category for verbal units that
has recently been of much interest is syntactic
structure of sentences (Chomsky, 1957).
Active, passive, or interrogative voice of
sentences is thought to be used to encode the
95
sentence is assumed to involve the storage of a
kernel which is the encoded representation of
the sentence content. The encoding and decod-
ing of a kernel is a function of independently
retained structural information (Braine, 1963;
Chomsky, 1957; Mehler, 1963; Miller,
1962).
The hypothesis of the present study is that
when the same sentence structure is repeatedly
used to encode different sentence contents,
structural encodings of sentence contents
should become confused and PI should result.
I f this occurs, change to a different structure
should produce release from PI.
To minimize use of semantic information,
nonsense words were used as sentence content
in the present study. The written sentence
format is the indicator of sentence structure
when nonsense words are the content (Epstein,
1962). However, Marks and Miller (1964)
suggest that in such a situation, Ss either dis-
cover and use sentence structure or they do
not. If discovery of structure is all-or-none,
then inclusion of an additional cue to struc-
ture should help. Thus, tree diagrams of
sentence structure (Jacobs & Rosenbaum,
1968) were used as cues in some conditions.
 96 HEISEY AND DUNCAN

METHOD Table 2 shows an active sentence and its transforms. In

the word list (control) condition, the articles, the and a,
Materials the auxiliaries, did and was, and the function word, by,
Two sets o f 12 content words were used to generate were not used. The two orders o f words in the word
two sets o f four sentences, Sentence Content Sets 1 and 2 list condition matched the different word orders in
(see Table 1). The appearance o f the nonsense words in the passive vs. the active and interrogative conditions.
the sentences was limited by two rules concerning their The suffix, ed, was retained, but punctuation was not
consonant-vowel (CV) sequence: (a) within a content used, m the word list.
set the CV sequence for words with the same syntactical
Design
TABLE 1 A 4 x 2 x 2 design was used. The four structure
conditions were active, passive, and lnterrogaUve
ACTIVEDECLARATIVESENTENCESUSEDAS sentences, and word list. There were two sentence con-
BASESENTENCES tents: the two different word sets shown in Table 1.
The third variable was presence or absence o f the
Content Set 1 graphic (tree diagram) cue.
1. A sart erboked the hmm. Each S in each condition studied, and was tested for
2. The deebs plxed a ticar. retention of, a different sentence on each trial for four
3. A m w e reclled the crad. trials. O n the first three trials, the sentences that S
4. The glers cheped a kale. received were determined by the sentence-structure
condition (active, passive, or interrogative, or word
Content Set 2
list) to which he was assigned. O n the fourth trial, all
1. A nerf enleped the bott.
Ss in all conditions received an active voice sentence.
2. The koobs teged a dlson.
The content S received was from either Set 1 or
3. A pabe desaked the shum.
Set 2 in Table I. These contents were used to generate
5. The crogs shzed a sote.
the first three sentences or word lists S received. Order
o f presentation o f sentences was counterbalanced over
the first three trials. On the fourth trial, half the Ss
function (e.g., nouns) could not be identical (thus, sart,
received Sentence 4 from Set 1, half received Sentence 4
deebs, etc.), except the verb suffix, ed, and (b) between
from Set 2, exactly as they are shown in Table 1. This
content sets, each sentence was matched, word for
was the target sentence, testing release from PI.
word, in CV sequence. A b o u t half of the nonsense
words were taken from Epstein (1962); the remainder
were produced to meet the above conditions.
Sentence
TABLE 2

STRUCTURALMANIPULATIONSON A BASESENTENCE the glers~

Transformation Experimental structure

Active The glers cheped a kale.

Passive A kale was cheped by the glers.
Interrogative Did the glers chepe a kale ?
The glers cheped a kale
W o r d list glers cheped kale
kale cheped glers

The three content words in each sentence were used
consistently in all sentence structure c o n d m o n s . Thus,
the n o u n phrase, the koobs, always occurred as a n o u n
phrase in all voice transformations. It is defined as a
noun phrase by its lawfully constrained response to the
application o f voice transformations (Jacobs & Rosen-
baum, 1968).
Sentence structure was manipulated by applying
voice transformations to the base sentences in Table 1.
FIG. 1. Active sentence with corresponding tree
structure above the dashed line.
The graphic cue was drawn on the same 5 x 8-m.
card on which a sentence or a word list was typed.
Figure 1 shows an example. In the word list condition,
the graphic cue consisted of lines drawn from a terminal
point marked Set (vs. Sentence in other conditions)
directly to each o f the three nonsense words. In
 SYNTACTICAL ENCODING IN SHORT-TERM MEMORY 97

sentence-structure conditions, the tree diagram was the r e s p e c t i v e l y (e.g., sark f o r sart, glars f o r glers).
same for the first three trials. The active tree-diagrams A w o r d was c o u n t e d i n c o r r e c t w h e n e v e r t h e
were used on Trial 4 for all conditions.
first letter was w r o n g , o r if a n E n g l i s h w o r d
Subjects r e s u l t e d f r o m a single letter s u b s t i t u t i o n (e.g.,
The Ss were 192 students from introductory psy- pare f o r pake).
chology course, 12 in each of the 16 conditions. All
were natwe speakers of English. Recall on Trials 1-3
Procedure I n e a c h c o n d i t i o n o v e r t h e first t h r e e trials,
The E instructed S that he would be shown a group of Ss r e c a l l e d d i f f e r e n t n o n s e n s e w o r d s o n e a c h
words, including some nonsense words, on a card for a trial b u t r e p e a t e d t h e s a m e s e n t e n c e s t r u c t u r e .
brief period. Next S would be shown a number from A n a l y s i s o f v a r i a n c e o f recall o v e r t h e t h r e e
which he was to count backwards by threes. Then S
trials r e v e a l e d t h a t t h e effect o f trials w a s
would be asked to write down as many of the words, In
the same left-to-right order m which they had significant, F ( 2 , 3 5 2 ) = 58.06, p < .001. P r e -
appeared, as he could recall. The E showed S a practice sence o r a b s e n c e o f t h e g r a p h i c cue w a s n o t
set of words on a card, and gave an example of counting significant, n o r was s e n t e n c e s t r u c t u r e (active,
backwards by threes. For Ss who were to see the gra- p a s s w e , i n t e r r o g a t i v e , o r w o r d list). N o i n t e r -
phic cue, E told S that he would be shown a way in
a c t i o n was significant. I n all f o u r s t r u c t u r e
which the words might be fit together, and that this
cue would help him remember the words and their c o n d i t i o n s , recall d e c h n e d o v e r trials, as m a y
proper order. The S was told that he would not be be seen in T a b l e 3.
asked to recall the cue.
In the noncued conditions each set (trial) of words TABLE 3
was exposed for 20 sec. In the cued conditions the
MEAN NONSENSE WORDS RECALLED ON EACH
words were exposed for 5 sec., then the card containing
TRIAL BY EACH OF THE EIGHT GROUPS
the cue was exposed for 15 sec. At the end of the 20-sec.
study period, E covered all materials with a card on Trial
which was printed some two-digit numbers from 51 to
99. The S counted backward by threes from this num- Condition 1 2 3 4
ber for 15 sec. The E then gave S 30 sec. in which to
write down as many of the words as he could, and in Noncued Active 3 00 2.50 2.21 1.92
the original order The S was told that ff he could not Passive 2.96 2.62 2.12 233
remember a word, to leave a blank space and go on to Interrogative 2.96 2.62 2.29 2.67
another word At the end of the 30-sec. period the next Word list 2.87 2.62 2.38 2.83
trial was begun. Cued Active 2.92 2.38 2.25 1.79
Passive 2.79 2.46 2.17 2.17
RESULTS Interrogative 2.87 2.29 1.87 2.08
Word list 2.79 2.50 2.21 2.54
E a c h S a t t e m p t e d to recall f o u r s e n t e n c e s o r
w o r d lists, e a c h c o n t a i n i n g t h r e e n o n s e n s e
w o r d s . R e c a l l o f c o n t e n t was m e a s u r e d in t w o Recall on Trial 4
w a y s : (a) t h e n u m b e r o f n o n s e n s e w o r d s p e r O n T r i a l 4, Ss w h o h a d h a d a c t i v e s e n t e n c e
s e n t e n c e o r list c o r r e c t l y r e c a l l e d w a s scored, s t r u c t u r e o n T r i a l s 1-3 c o n t i n u e d w i t h a c t i v e
u s i n g l e n i e n t spelling c r i t e r i a ; (b) t h e n u m b e r structure. T h e Ss w h o h a d h a d p a s s i v e o r
o f n o n s e n s e w o r d letters r e c a l l e d was s c o r e d i n t e r r o g a t i v e s t r u c t u r e , o r w o r d list, c h a n g e d
as a p e r c e n t a g e o f t o t a l letters ( w h i c h v a r i e d t o a c t i v e s t r u c t u r e . T h e r e f o r e , in t h e a n a l y s i s
f r o m 14 t o 15) in all t h r e e n o n s e n s e w o r d s . I n o f v a r i a n c e f o r w o r d recall o n T r i a l 4, a c o m -
scoring number of words a misspelled word p a r i s o n was m a d e b e t w e e n t h e a c t i v e v o i c e
was allowed correct when word pronunciation c o n d i t i o n a n d the c o m b i n e d p a s s i v e , i n t e r r o -
was n o t s u b s t a n t i a l l y c h a n g e d (e.g., soat f o r gative, a n d w o r d list c o n d i t i o n s . T h i s c o m -
sote), o r w h e n a c o n s o n a n t o r a v o w e l was p a r i s o n w a s h i g h l y significant, F ( 1 , 1 7 6 ) =
replaced by another consonant or vowel, 20.99, p < .001 ; the active c o n d i t i o n s h o w e d
 98 HEISEY AND DUNCAN
further PI while the other conditions showed
some recovery from PI. A comparison between
passive and interrogative conditions combined
versus the word list gave F(1, 176)= 7.71,
p < .01 ; the word list condition showed greater
recovery from PI than these two structure
conditions. The passive and interrogative
voice conditions did not differ, F < 1.
The cue variable was significant, F(1, 176)
= 6.99, p < .01; the cued Ss recalled fewer
words than the noncued Ss on Trial 4. Because
of this, the means in Table 3 are given separ-
ately for cued and noncued conditions on all
four trials even though cue was not significant
on Trials 1-3.
The only other significant term in the
analysis was sentence content, F(1, 176)=
8.03. Words from the test sentence in Content
Set 2 (Sentences 4 in Table 1) were most
difficult to recall. No interaction was signifi-
cant.
The percentage of nonsense word letters
recalled on Trials 1-3 and on Trial 4 was
analyzed. The results were essentially iden-
tical with those for word recall.
Syntactic Recall
On Trial 4 all Ss received sentences in the
active voice. Two judges scored syntactic
recall, using three categories: (a) sentence
fragment, the recalled words were not suffi-
cient in number to determine the voice of the
sentence, (b) voice error, the sentence was
recalled in the wrong voice, shown by the
presence of did, indicating a question, or was
by, indicating the passive, (c) correct recall of
sentence voice. The two judges agreed perfectly
in scoring. Table 4 shows the number of Ss in
each syntactic recall category. Analysis of this
matrix yielded X2 = 45.62, p < .001. The Ss
who had had passive voice sentences on Trials
1-3 made only passive voice errors on the
active voice sentence of Trial 4, and the inter-
rogative condition Ss made only interrogative
errors. Thus, syntactic recall on Trial 4 seems
dependent on the type of voice experienced on
previous trials.
Relation of Word to Voice Recall
As shown in Table 4, in the passive voice
condition there were 25 Ss who showed
correct (active) voice recall on Trial 4, and
19 Ss who showed voice error. For the inter-
rogative condition, these subgroups contained
31 Ss and 12 Ss, respectively. Combining these
groups, there were 56 Ss who exhibited
correct voice on Trial 4 and 31 Ss who were
incorrect in voice recall. The correct voice Ss
also recalled slightly more words on Trial 4,
a mean of 2.62 words versus 2.06 for the
incorrect voice Ss, t = 3.50,p < .01. (The voice
correct Ss had also recalled slightly more
words on Trial 3, 2.30 vs. 2.13 for incorrect
voice Ss, but the means do not differ signifi-
cantly.) The results were the same for per-
centage of letters recalled; voice correct and
voice incorrect Ss did not differ on Trial 3
(80.2 and 78.0 ~ , respectively) but did differ
on Trial 4 (87.3 and 61.3 ~ , t = 7.56, p < .001).
TABLE 4
NUMBER OF as IN EACH STRUCTURE CONDITION WHO
MADE EACH OF THREE TYPES OF RECALLOF THE VOICE
OF THE ACTIVE SENTENCE ON TRIAL 4
Structure condition
Recall type Active Passive Interrogative Word list
Voice correct 43 25 31 47
Voiceerror 0 19 12 0
Sentence
fragment 5 4 5 1
DISCUSSION
In the first three trials, Ss learned and re-
called nonsense words under eight different
conditions: active, passive, or interrogative
sentence structure, or no structure (word list),
and presence or absence of the graphic cue. In
light of Wickens' (1970) review of PI in short-
term memory, it is not surprising to find that
this study also found build-up of PI over trials.
However, it is worth noting that the PI build-
up did not vary as a function of any of the ex-
perimental conditions. Although not specific-
 SYNTACTICAL ENCODING IN SHORT-TERM MEMORY
ally hypothesized, it had initially seemed
reasonable to expect that PI build-up might
proceed at different rates for the three sentence
structure groups versus the no-structure word
list group. This did not occur, nor did the
attempt to emphasize structure by the graphic
cue have any effect in the first three trials. As
Wickens' (1970) summary of 14 different
classes of materials that have been used in
short-term PI studies indicates, development
of PI over successive trials on the same class
(variously defined) is a very general pheno-
menon.
After PI has been built up by a few trials on
the same class, changing to a different class of
materials on a final trial produces varying
results. Partial release from PI (better reten-
tion on the final trial compared to the im-
mediately preceding trial, but rarely as good as
on the first trial) occurs for some but not all
shifts of class. More quantitatively, Wickens
presented a bar graph (Wickens, 1970; Fig. 7,
p. 7) showing recovery from PI varying from
very large amounts in semantic-type classes to
statistically insignificant amounts in classes
based on physical characteristics of verbal
units.
In the present study, there were three dis-
tinct levels of performance on the final trial.
The lowest level (poorest retention) was shown
by the active sentence structure condition,
which condition corresponds to the control
group in the experiments covered by Wickens,
that is, Ss who continued with the same class
on all trials. The active structure group
showed, as have other control groups, further
PI build-up on the final trial. A higher level of
retention, and some recovery from PI, was
shown by the two groups that had had passive
or interrogative sentence structure on the first
three trials, when they were shifted to active
structure on the last trial. These groups did
not differ in amount of PI recovery. The
greatest recovery was shown by word-list Ss,
who had not experienced any kind of sentence
structure until presented with the active
structure on the final trial. Using Wickens'
99
method for computing loss and recovery from
PI, the active structure (not shifted) group
showed a loss of 37.3 ~ from Trial 1 to Trial 4.
The combined passive and interrogative
groups recovered 41.5 ~ of this loss, while the
word list group recovered 75.5 ~ of the loss.
This latter value for recovery is exceeded by
only one or two, and equalled by one or two,
of the 14 types of shift for which Wickens
computed recovery percentages. The 4 1 . 5 ~
value, for the passive and interrogative Ss who
experienced sentence structure shift, is about
the median level of recovery reported by
Wickens.
The word list Ss did not have syntax during
the first three trials and so could not use syn-
tax as an encoding cue. When sentence struc-
ture was first introduced to these Ss on Trial 4,
the effect was to produce a large recovery from
PI. Furthermore, the fact that 47 out of these
48 Ss correctly recalled sentence structure on
Trial 4 (Table 4) suggests that they used syntax
as an encoding cue when it was made available.
The passive and interrogative conditions
are perhaps better test cases for syntax as an
encoding cue. Since both groups had one type
of voice initially, then were shifted to another,
it was possible to measure whether they had
been using structure by whether they shifted.
As noted earlier, 56 Ss did shift to the active
voice on Trial 4 but 31 Ss did not. These 31
Ss continued to use the voice they had had on
the first three trials. This meant that in trying
to recall the Trial 4 sentence, they transformed
it from the active voice in which it had been
presented to the voice in which the three pre-
vious sentences had been presented. Thus, at
least for some Ss, syntax can be used to such a
degree that they become fixated on one type
of voice.
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100 HEISEY AND DUNCAN
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(Received August 19, 1970)