Visuospatial bootstrapping: Aging and the facilitation of verbal memory by spatial displays.

Abstract

A B S T R A C TWhen people are presented with a random list of digits to remember over an interval of a few seconds, the cognitive systems that are used are mainly verbal working memory systems, and these are different from those used when remembering visuospatial information. Our previous work has demonstrated that under certain circumstances, visuospatial memory processes can assist verbal memory processes. If a sequence of random numbers is presented for immediate recall in order, memory is better if the digits are displayed on a familiar telephone keypad array compared to either an unfamiliar random keypad or a single item. We previously argued that this was evidence for the existence of processes (described in many modern theories of memory) that could integrate information held in long-term memory (knowledge about the keypad) with short-term visuospatial memory for sequences of locations and short-term verbal memory for sequences of digits. In the current article, we report a study that demonstrates that this pattern remains present in a sample of older (55-76 years) adults compared to a younger sample (19 -35 years). There are important benefits of this identification of the age-resilience of linkages between different types of information in short-term memory. One specific benefit is to theories of aging, but a second, broader, benefit may be that we can capitalize upon this finding to develop strategies and techniques for boosting the efficiency of working memory in older adults, an outcome that would have many benefits to an aging population. S C I E N T I F I C A B S T R A C TRecent studies on verbal immediate serial recall show evidence of the integration of information from verbal and visuospatial short-term memory with long-term memory representations. Verbal serial recall is improved when the information is arranged in a familiar spatially distributed pattern, such as a telephone keypad. This pattern, termed visuospatial bootstrapping, is consistent with the existence within working memory of an episodic buffer (Baddeley, 2000). The present experiment aimed to investigate whether similar results would be obtained in a sample of older adults. Older (55-76) and younger (19 -35) adults carried out visual serial recall in 3 visual display conditions that have previously been used to demonstrate visuospatial bootstrapping. Results demonstrated better performance when digits were presented in a typical telephone keypad display. Although digit serial recall declined with age, there was no evidence that this visuospatial bootstrapping effect differed in size between older and younger adults. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are described.

On the Right Track? Investigating the Effect of Path Characteristics on Visuospatial Bootstrapping in Verbal Serial Recall

“…Spoken recall of the verbal list was significantly higher in the typical keypad condition than in either of the other conditions. This familiar keypad benefit has been replicated several times, confirming that presenting verbal materials within a familiar spatial layout consistently improves recall (Allen, Havelka, Falcon, Evans, & Darling, 2015; Calia, Darling, Allen, & Havelka, 2015; Darling, Allen, Havelka, Campbell, & Rattray, 2012; Darling, Parker, Goodall, Havelka, & Allen, 2014). However, it is uncertain whether VSB effects depend mainly on commandeering long-term memories or alternatively, on commandeering domain-specific visuospatial processes for the benefit of verbal serial recall.…”

Visuospatial bootstrapping: spatialized displays enhance digit and nonword sequence learning

“…Going forward, we await with interest the possible application of this approach to other groups of participants where support for memorization may be useful, such as perhaps children or older adults. We note in this context that data demonstrating that bootstrapping is relatively resilient to aging and hippocampal damage 18,21,23 suggest that it may form a useful tool, but note that, of course, such an extrapolation requires further work to substantiate it.…”

Visuospatial bootstrapping: Binding useful visuospatial information during verbal working memory encoding does not require set-shifting executive resources

“…In the main experimental blocks, participants received digit sequences that were two items smaller than their own span, which was assessed in an initial pre-test. This change in method from previous studies in which participants had been tested at their measured span (Darling, Parker, Goodall, Havelka & Allen, 2014;Allen et al, 2015;Calia et al, 2015) was necessitated by piloting showing floor performance under the day-month sequencing secondary task. The procedure took no longer than 1 hour, and the research was approved by the Research Ethics Committee at Queen Margaret University.…”