The detrimental effect of semantic similarity in short-term memory tasks: A meta-regression approach

The literature suggests that semantic similarity has a weak or null effect for immediate serial reconstruction and a facilitative effect for immediate serial recall. These observed semantic similarity effects are inconsistent with the assumptions of short-term memory (STM) models on the detrimental effect of similarity (e.g., confusion) and with observations of a robust detrimental effect of phonological similarity. Our review indicates that the experimental results are likely dependent on the manipulation strength for semantic similarity and that manipulations used in previous studies might have affected semantic assvociation as well as semantic similarity. To address these possible issues, two indices are proposed: (a) strength of manipulation on semantic similarity, gained by quantifying semantic similarity based on Osgood and associates’ dimensional view of semantics, and (b) inter-item associative strength, a possible confounding factor. Our review and the results of a meta-regression analysis using these two indices suggest that semantic similarity has a detrimental effect on both serial reconstruction and serial recall, while semantic association, which is correlated with semantic similarity, contributes to an apparent facilitative effect. An effect that is not attributable to similarity or association was also implied. Review on item and order memory further suggests the facilitative effect of semantic association on item memory and the detrimental effect of the semantic similarity on order memory. Based on our findings, we propose a unified explanation of observations of semantic similarity effects for both serial reconstruction and serial recall that is in good accord with STM models.