DEVELOPMENTAL ASPECTS OF PHONEMIC AND VISUAL SIMILARITY EFFECTS - FURTHER EVIDENCE IN ITALIAN CHILDREN

Phonemic and visual similarity effects were investigated in Italian ch ildren of different ages. In Experiment 1, two groups of children (mea n age 5;1 and 10;3 years) were asked to recall either pictures of comm on objects with phonemically similar or dissimilar names, or the spoke n names of the pictures. Although a similarity effect was present in o lder children for both words and drawings, in younger children only a tendency in the expected direction occurred. The lack of a phonemic si milarity effect for spoken words was attributed to the presence of a c eiling effect. In addition, results showed a significant superior reca ll for words in younger children and for drawings in older ones. An ad ditional group of 5-year-old children was tested, increasing the list length to four items. Results indicated a significant similarity effec t for words but not for drawings, together with a superior recall for words. These findings, in agreement with previous results, suggest tha t phonological memory traces contribute to performance of younger chil dren only when material to be recalled is in the auditory modality, wh ereas in older children phonological coding is independent in the inpu t modality. In Experiment 2 the performance of 5- and 10-year-old chil dren was compared for immediate recall of two different sets of visual ly similar and dissimilar drawings. Results showed a significant effec t of visual similarity in younger children only, for both sets of draw ings, extending previously obtained results (e.g. Hitch, Halliday, Sch aaftal, & Scrhaagen, 1988) to different materials and to Italian subje cts. In Experiment 3, the visual similarity effect was investigated wi th a delayed recall procedure in a 5-year-old group. Four delay interv als (0, 5, 10, 15 seconds) and two activities during delay (articulato ry suppression and a tapping task) were considered. Results obtained i ndicated that the visual similarity effect is present at all delay int ervals for both activities during delay; and are discussed in terms of alternative interpretations of the visual similarity effect.