In the classic view of verbal short-term memory, immediate recall is achieved by maintaining phonological representations, while the influence of other linguistic information is negligible. According to language-based accounts, short-term retention of verbal material is inherently bound to language production and comprehension, thus also influenced by semantic or syntactic factors. In line with this, serial recall is better when lists are presented in a canonical word order for English rather than in a noncanonical order (e.g., when adjectives precede nouns rather than vice versa; Perham et al., 2009, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62[7], 1285–1293). However, in many languages, grammaticality is not exclusively determined by word order. In German, an adjective–noun sequence is grammatical only if the adjective is inflected in congruence with the noun’s person, number, and grammatical gender. Therefore, we investigated whether similar effects of syntactic word order occur in German. In two modified replications of Perham et al.’s study, we presented lists of three pairs of adjectives and nouns, presented in adjective–noun or in noun–adjective order. In addition, we manipulated morphosyntactic congruence between nouns and adjectives within pairs (Exp. 1: congruently inflected vs. uninflected adjectives; Exp. 2: congruently inflected vs. incongruently inflected adjectives). Both experiments show an interaction: Word order affected recall performance only when adjectives were inflected in congruence with the corresponding noun. These findings are in line with language-based models and indicate that, in a language that determines grammaticality in an interplay of syntactic and morphosyntactic factors, word order alone is not sufficient to improve verbal short-term memory.

在口头短期记忆的经典观点中，立即回忆是通过保持语音表征来实现的，而其他语言信息的影响可以忽略不计。根据基于语言的描述，语言材料的短期保留与语言产生和理解有着内在的联系，因此也受到语义或句法因素的影响。与此一致，当列表以英语的规范词序而非非规范顺序呈现时（例如，当形容词在名词之前而不是反之亦然时；Perham et al., 2009, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology , 62[7]，1285-1293）。然而，在许多语言中，语法并不完全由词序决定。在德语中，形容词-名词序列只有在形容词的屈折变化与名词的人称、数和语法性别一致时才符合语法。因此，我们调查了德语中是否存在类似的句法词序效应。在 Perham 等人的研究的两次修改复制中，我们提供了三对形容词和名词的列表，以形容词-名词或名词-形容词的顺序呈现。此外，我们在成对中操纵名词和形容词之间的形态句法一致性（实验 1：一致屈折的形容词与不屈折的形容词；实验 2：一致屈折的形容词与不一致屈折的形容词）。两个实验都显示了相互作用：只有当形容词与相应的名词一致时，词序才会影响回忆表现。这些发现与基于语言的模型一致，并表明，在句法和形态句法因素相互作用中决定语法性的语言中，单靠词序不足以改善口头短期记忆。