Abstract
We constructed a connectionist model of the phonological loop, which develops an internal representation of phonology through imitation-style learning. After learning a large corpus of English monosyllabic words, the model could repeat and rehearse not only well-learned words, but also novel nonwords. The model was also able to acquire a representation of the identity of words through a self-organizing learning rule, and to recall the serial order of the words. We showed that the capacity of the phonological loop and the speed of the vocabulary acquisition depended on the rate of updating weights in the model. Furthermore, the model could replicate the effect of long-term memory on the immediate serial recall of words and nonwords.
