Transitional Information in Spatial Serial Memory: Path Characteristics Affect Recall Performance.

Abstract

This study examined the role of stimulus characteristics in a visuospatial order reconstruction task in which participants were required to recall the order of sequences of spatial locations. The complexity of the to-be-remembered sequences, as measured by path crossing, path length, and angles, was found to affect serial memory, in terms of both recall accuracy and response times. The results demonstrate that not all sequences are remembered equally and that spatial characteristics of the sequences constitute an important variable in the understanding of visuospatial serial memory. More important, the data suggest that spatial path represents transitional information and that, as is the case in verbal serial memory, transitional information is of critical importance in serial memory.

Asymmetric binding in serial memory for verbal and spatial information

“…Experiment 2 replicated previous studies in showing that spatial complexity impairs memory for spatial locations (see, e.g., Parmentier et al, 2005). The results are also clear in showing that spatial complexity had no effect on the recall of letters.…”

“…Spatial complexity was defined as the total length of, as well as the number of crossings between, the paths connecting successive dot locations. Both the number of crossings (see, e.g., Parmentier & Andrés, 2006;Parmentier et al, 2005) and path length (see, e.g., Guérard, Tremblay, & Saint-Aubin, 2009b;Parmentier et al, 2005) have been shown to substantially decrease order memory for spatial locations. In the two-feature group, participants tried to retain both the letters and their locations.…”

“…Half of the sequences were made from the random ordering of the phonologically similar letters B, C, D, G, P, T, and V, and the other half were made from the random ordering of the dissimilar letters F, H, J, K, L, N, and R. The letters were presented in 35-point Arial Black font. The locations of the letters were determined quasirandomly, with the restrictions that (1) each location was separated from any other location in the same list by at least 4.5°and (2) all of the sequences contained between two and three crossings (i.e., the number of times that one path connecting two successive locations crossed another path; see Parmentier et al, 2005). The sequences in all conditions were equated in the numbers of crossings, the distances between all pairs of successive locations, and the total distances between all possible pairs of dots within a sequence.…”

What limits working memory capacity?

“…3 Displays with smaller stimuli separated by a larger distance increased the time for moving between the stimuli at recall but had no effect on memory accuracy. Parmentier, Elford, and Maybery (2005) found that memory for serial order of spatial locations declines with increasing length of the path connecting subsequent locations, as well as with increasing path complexity (e.g., number of path crossings). In a review of the relevant literature, Parmentier (2011) came to the conclusion that these effects of path characteristics are more likely to arise from difficulties during encoding rather than from delays imposed during maintenance.…”

Attentional capture by deviant sounds: A noncontingent form of auditory distraction?

“…Moreover, with such a small number of dots, it is possible that participants may have formed dot patterns that could have altered the way in which the stimuli were recalled (e.g., Parmentier, Elford, & Maybery, 2005), hence reducing the sensitivity of the spatial task to distraction. The fact that the verbal and spatial tasks yielded different contexts in which the auditory deviation took place may be responsible, at least in part, for the domain-specific deviation effects reported.…”