Spatial sequences, but not verbal sequences, are vulnerable to general interference during retention in working memory

Morey, Candice C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7644-5239 and Miron, Monica D 2016. Spatial sequences, but not verbal sequences, are vulnerable to general interference during retention in working memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 42 (12) , pp. 1907-1918. 10.1037/xlm0000280

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Abstract

Among models of working memory, there is not yet a consensus about how to describe functions specific to storing verbal or visual-spatial memories. We presented aural-verbal and visual-spatial lists simultaneously and sometimes cued one type of information after presentation, comparing accuracy in conditions with and without informative retro-cues. This design isolates interference due specifically to maintenance, which appears most clearly in the uncued trials, from interference due to encoding, which occurs in all dual-task trials. When recall accuracy was comparable between tasks, we found that spatial memory was worse in uncued than in retro-cued trials, whereas verbal memory was not. Our findings bolster proposals that maintenance of spatial serial order, like maintenance of visual materials more broadly, relies on general rather than specialized resources, while maintenance of verbal sequences may rely on domain-specific resources. We argue that this asymmetry should be explicitly incorporated into models of working memory

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Publisher:	American Psychological Association
ISSN:	0278-7393
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	10 October 2017
Date of Acceptance:	7 March 2016
Last Modified:	03 Dec 2024 22:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/105361

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