Recalling visual serial order for verbal sequences

Abstract

We report three experiments in which participants performed written serial recall of visually presented verbal sequences with items varying in visual similarity. In Experiments 1 and 2 native speakers of Japanese recalled visually presented Japanese Kanji characters. In Experiment 3, native speakers of English recalled visually presented words. In all experiments, items varied in visual similarity and were controlled for phonological similarity. For Kanji and for English, performance on lists comprising visually similar items was overall poorer than for lists of visually distinct items across all serial positions. For mixed lists in which visually similar and visually distinct items alternated through the list, a clear “zig-zag” pattern appeared with better recall of the visually distinct items than for visually similar items. This is the first time that this zig-zag pattern has been shown for manipulations of visual similarity in serial-ordered recall. These data provide new evidence that retaining a sequence of visual codes relies on similar principles to those that govern the retention of a sequence of phonological codes. We further illustrate this by demonstrating that the data patterns can be readily simulated by at least one computational model of serial-ordered recall, the Primacy model (Page and Norris, Psychological Review, 105(4), 761–81, 1998). Together with previous evidence from neuropsychological studies and experimental studies with healthy adults, these results are interpreted as consistent with two domain-specific, limited-capacity, temporary memory systems for phonological material and for visual material, respectively, each of which uses similar processes that have evolved to be optimal for retention of serial order.

The Mid-Career Award Working out how working memory works: evidence from typical and atypical development

“…These, and related (Logie, Saito, Morita, Varma, & Norris, 2015;Saito, Logie, Morita, & Law, 2008) studies have produced mixed findings, with some authors arguing for domain-specific ordering of verbal vs. visuo-spatial information while accepting that these two mechanism operate on very similar principles (Logie et al, 2015;Hurlstone et al, 2014). However, the current balance of evidence appears to be in favour of at least some degree of domain-general short-term ordering of representations (see Farrell & Oberauer, 2014;Vandierendonck, 2016).…”

Interpreting potential markers of storage and rehearsal: Implications for studies of verbal short-term memory and neuropsychological cases

“…Similarly, the overall effect of presentation modality, observed in the main analysis of the Logie et al (1996) data presented above, could well reflect the fact that visually presented material can potentially be encoded and retained in a non phonological form, which might be less effective than phonological coding for retaining serial order (Logie, Della Sala, Wynn & Baddeley, 2000;Logie et al, 2015;Saito et al, 2008). Warrington and Shallice (1972) reported that the brain-damaged patient, KF, only showed a severe verbal short-term memory deficit with auditory presentation.…”

“…In other words, although visual presentation led to a significantly smaller absolute effect of similarity than auditory presentation, this can be entirely accounted for statistically by the fact that baseline levels of recall were smaller in the visual presentation condition as shown above. This leaves open the question of whether the smaller visual presentation effect reflects the reduced ability of visual coding to retain serial verbal order (e.g., Logie, Saito, Morita, Varma, & Norris, 2015;Saito, Logie, Morita & Law, 2008) or impaired phonological loop functioning.…”

“…This may be because under such conditions participants adopt a strategy other than rehearsal, such as using the similarity between phonologically similar items as a cue to item identity (Fallon et al, 1999;Gupta, Lipinski, & Aktunc, 2005), or making use of semantic information that might be richer for long than for short words (Campoy & Baddeley, 2008). However, detection of the use of alternative strategies can only rely on positive evidence for the use of such strategies, such as effects of visual similarity (e.g., Logie et al, 2015;Saito et al, 2008) or semantic similarity (e.g., Baddeley, 1966;Campoy & Baddeley, 2008). Therefore, without such positive evidence for alternative strategies, the absence of a phonological similarity or word length effect does not imply that phonological coding and rehearsal are not being used.…”

“…In this case, and as noted by Logie et al (1996), the participants may simply choose not to use subvocal rehearsal to perform the task, and instead rely on alternative strategies (cf. Johnson et al, 2010;Logie et al, 2000Logie et al, , 2015Saito et al, 2008).…”