Universal Nonsense: The need for a linguistically fair nonword repetition task
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- February 26, 2019
- Creator
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Rao, Leela
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
- Abstract
- Nonword, or nonsense word, repetition tasks are an established way of measuring working memory in both children and adults. However, the most common working memory tasks are based on sounds and linguistic rules from the English language, while the number of bilingual speakers in the United States is on the rise. Past research has shown that the wordlikeness, or the similarity of a nonword to a real word in a participant’s native language, has a strong impact on the participant’s performance on a nonword repetition task. Thus, the present study aimed to create a linguistically more equivalent nonword repetition task for a more diverse range of research participants. A list of 40 nonwords was created by employing linguistic rules and sounds from twelve of the most frequently spoken languages in the US. Undergraduate participants with various language backgrounds were recruited to complete the new task. Results showed that participants with differing language backgrounds performed the same on the new nonword repetition task, but the number of languages participants were exposed to was positively correlated with repetition accuracy. Future directions for further pilot testing are proposed.
- Date of publication
- spring 2016
- Keyword
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Note
- Funding: David Bray Peele Memorial Research Award
- Advisor
- Goldman, Barbara
- Degree
- Bachelor of Science
- Honors level
- Highest Honors
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Extent
- 37
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