T. L. FERREIRA ET AL.
generated the acoustic confusion. Another justification is that
the representation of these words is subject to a partial loss
caused by temporal deterioration, by interference from other
phonological information or the difficulty to memorize the
meaning of words (Fisher & Craik, 1977). The results in Table
2 corroborate those found by Ferreira (2011). In that table it is
observed that, on the evidence, and on C2 B3 involving recall
of the word lists under the effect of phonological similarity, the
average performance of the subjects were lower compared to
the other subtests. Words with semantic similarity showed
greater ease of recall, because the recall of words under this
effect also involves the long-term memory. The span of mem-
ory increases when words that are repeated have semantic
similarity, allowing to imagine a working memory made of
multiple representations that constitute the same amount of
buffer systems connected to each other (visual, auditory, lexical,
phonological, semantic, motor, and etc.).
Table 2 shows that the average performance of recall of
words with semantic similarity (B2) presented no statistically
significant difference between the alphabetic reading and spell-
ing phases. The lack of statistically significant performance
might be due to the difference in N subjects in a phase and
another reading. These results do not corroborate other findings
(Ferreira, 2011; Cunha & Capellini, 2010) because there was a
statistically significant improvement in performance among
proficient students recalling words under the effect of semantic
similarity.
The results on the recall of polysyllabic words with complex
phonology, and different semantics presented statistically sig-
nificant difference between the subjects who were in alphabetic
level and the orthographic level reading. Consider the positive
effect of reading ability on working memory, mainly phono-
logical, corroborating the study of Cunha, Capellini (2010) that
investigated the performance of working memory in school
from the 1st to 4th grade of elementary school. In the study, the
authors observed an improvement of the average performance
of remembrance of polysyllabic words throughout the school
years.
The subjects’ performance on the test recall of non-three syl-
lable words (B5), displayed in Table 2, indicates a statistically
significant difference between subject-level alphabet and spell-
ing. The subjects who were at the orthographic level showed
higher average performance than the subjects of alphabetic
level. In the same table, it is observed that there was no statisti-
cally significant difference of the recall of non-syllable words.
These results allow us the discussion from the point of view
that the memory of non-syllable words does not require too
much use of phonological abilities, and therefore not sensitive
to differentiate the performance of subjects in different age
groups and levels of education. The repetition of non-three
syllable words requires more efficient use of phonological
awareness and the knowledge that this skill is intrinsically re-
lated to the level of education, promotes the development of
finer levels of working memory, and it is able to justify the
difference in performance in this study, which corroborates the
findings of Ferreira (2011), Cunha and Capellini (2010).
The analysis of Table 2 of the subtests in Table 2 that pre-
sented differences statistically significant (with star *) shows
that the development of working memory and reading has
strengthened each other, because the subjects who had read at
the orthographic level obtained better results in average per-
formance work memory than the subjects with reading in al-
phabetic level.
As to the visual aspect of working memory assessed by the
material used in this study, the results presented in A4 and B4
subtests indicated the non-occurrence of a statistically signifi-
cant difference between the group of children with reading in
the alphabetic stage and the group of children with reading
stage spelling (Table 2). I.e. the breakthrough performance of
the reading level was not relevant to the occurrence of better
performance in visual working memory. Although there is no
performance difference between the visual subtests in relation
to the reading level, the study showed that there is a positive
correlation between age and visual recall in direct order (Table
3). These results are in line with the studyof Hitch, Wooding,
Barker (1989), which states that the development of “visual-
spatial scheme” (sketchpad) in children 5 to 10 years old has
little influence on the size of the stimulus and the similarity
between them. However, Lopes, Lopes, Galera (2005) found
improved performance on visual-spatial memory in children 11
to 12 years old. A study made by Barbosa, Bernardes, Misore lli,
Chiappeta (2010). revealed that the acquisition of orthographic
rules have positive relationship with the performance in visual
working memory, revealing that the greater the number of mis-
spelling committed in dictation, the worse the performance in
visual working memory.
Conclusion
The present study shows that the performance of working
memory and reading level is influenced by age and ranking of
the subject. The results showed that participants in the 1st and
2nd year showed reading in the alphabetic stage and that the
students of 3rd and 4th grade showed reading in the spelling
stage. As to working memory, the results indicated that the
participants of the 3rd and 4th year showed better performance
in the assessment of working memory when compared with
children from 1st and 2nd year. Regarding the variables that
influenced the auditory working memory, in this study it was
evident that the recall of words with phonological similarity was
affected by auditory and temporal variables, but the recollection
of words with semantic similarity features improved the per-
formance over the earlier. Regarding the visual working mem-
ory, there were no significant differences between groups, but
there was a positive correlation between age and visual recall in
direct order. Therefore, it was observed that older children per-
formed better on tasks of working memory than younger chil-
dren, and this was attributed to the mutual, concomitant and
bidirectional development between these skills.
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