What is articulatory suppression and how does it affect memory?

• A. Repeating an irrelevant sound while encoding disrupts phonological loop rehearsal and reduces verbal recall; nonverbal tasks are relatively unaffected
• B. Repeating a relevant word improves memory
• C. It has no effect on verbal recall
• D. It enhances nonverbal tasks

Answer: (A)

Articulatory suppression tests the role of the articulatory rehearsal process within the phonological loop. When you repeat an irrelevant sound while trying to encode or maintain verbal material, that vocal-motor system is occupied, so you can’t subvocally rehearse the to-be-remembered items. The consequence is a drop in verbal recall because the refreshing loop isn’t available to keep the words active in memory.

This fits the idea that verbal information relies on the phonological loop, while tasks that don’t depend on phonology—like many visual or spatial tasks—are relatively spared under suppression. So, repeating a noise disrupts memory for spoken or written material but not (to the same extent) nonverbal tasks.