Average digit span serial#

Chunking has in turn been shown to be potentially influenced by long-term memory, as in the case of sequences of letters or words where the closer the sequence approximates the structure of the native language, the better the performance (Baddeley, 1971 Miller & Selfridge, 1950 Thorn & Gathercole, 1999 Tulving & Patkau, 1962).

Average digit span serial#

They potentially throw light on two important issues: The way in which serial order is stored and the potential for increasing capacity by binding items into chunks with span determined by number of chunks rather than items (Miller, 1956). Low digit span is also predictive of difficulty in second language learning (Atkins & Baddeley, 1998).Īt a theoretical level, despite their apparent simplicity, digit and related verbal serial recall measures have proved both complex and fruitful. For example, low digit span has been found in children with delayed reading (Gathercole, Briscoe, Thorn, Tiffany, & ALSPAC Study Team, 2008) and to be associated with slow acquisition of vocabulary (Gathercole & Baddeley, 1989, 1990). Possible alternative explanations are discussed.ĭigit span, first developed by Jacobs ( 1887), continues to play an important role in both clinical and educational psychometric tests. Further analysis suggested that speed of rehearsal did not provide an adequate account of differences between Mandarin and English spans or for the advantage of digits over words. However, this correlation was more pronounced for English speakers than for any of the Chinese measures. Speed of rehearsal correlated with span performance across materials. This suggests that the Mandarin advantage is not limited to digits. When compared to the performance of native English speakers, the Mandarin group proved to be superior on both digit and word spans while predictably having lower spans in English. We explored this hypothesis by testing a group of English-speaking native Mandarin speakers on digit span and word span in both Mandarin and English, together with a measure of speed of articulation for each. This is commonly attributed to a capacity for more rapid subvocal rehearsal for that group. It is well established that digit span in native Chinese speakers is atypically high.