Reversing the Word-Length Effect: A Comment on Caplan, Rochon, and Waters

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Abstract
Caplan, Rochon, and Waters (1992) report a failure to observe the poorer immediate serial recall for words of longer spoken duration obtained by Baddeley, Thomson, and Buchanan (1975) and subsequently replicated by others. Indeed, they find a significant reversal of this effect. We present evidence that the material used by Caplan et al. differs only minimally in spoken duration under speeded articulation conditions (Exp. 1 = 1.9%, Exp 2 = 2.31%), in contrast to a clear difference in the case of the original Baddeley et al. material (24.5%). It is further suggested that the reversal of the word-length effect may result from differences in acoustic similarity between the “long” and “short” word sets used by Caplan et al. We conclude that the evidence continues to indicate that longer spoken duration is associated with reduced memory span.