While an elicited imitation test (EIT) has been widely used as a measure of oral proficiency in second language acquisition (SLA) research, it is still unclear the extent to which memory capacity impacts EIT performance. In light of this gap, the present study sought to clarify the nature of elicited imitation by examining the relative contributions of language ability and phonological short-term memory (PSTM) to EIT performance. Seventy-eight second language (L2) learners of Spanish, who were grouped into 3 Spanish experience levels, took a Spanish EIT, an L2 oral narrative task, and a nonword repetition (NWR) task in their first language. Results demonstrated that learners? EIT performance was primarily predicted by complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) measures extracted from the oral narrative task rather than NWR scores, which served as an index for PSTM capacity. Furthermore, the present study provided suggestive evidence that PSTM capacity may differentially mediate EIT performance depending on the extent of learners? proficiency in and experience with Spanish. While facilitative effects for PSTM capacity were observed for less experienced learners, no effects were found for more experienced learners.

中文翻译：

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工作记忆和口语能力在诱发模仿表现中的作用

虽然诱发模仿测试 (EIT) 已被广泛用作第二语言习得 (SLA) 研究中口语能力的衡量标准，但仍不清楚记忆容量对 EIT 表现的影响程度。鉴于这一差距，本研究试图通过检查语言能力和语音短期记忆 (PSTM) 对 EIT 表现的相对贡献来阐明诱发模仿的性质。七十八名西班牙语第二语言 (L2) 学习者被分为 3 个西班牙语经验级别，他们以他们的第一语言进行了一项西班牙语 EIT、一项 L2 口头叙述任务和一项非单词重复 (NWR) 任务。结果表明，学习者？EIT 表现主要通过从口头叙述任务中提取的复杂性、准确性和流畅性 (CAF) 度量而不是 NWR 分数来预测，用作 PSTM 容量的指标。此外，本研究提供了暗示性证据，表明 PSTM 能力可能会根据学习者的程度不同地调节 EIT 表现？熟练掌握西班牙语并有经验。虽然观察到经验较少的学习者对 PSTM 能力的促进作用，但没有发现对经验丰富的学习者的影响。