Implication of visuospatial and temporal information in memory for word location

Abstract

Two hypotheses can be raised about the processes underlying memory for word location in text. These could involve accessing the location directly from a visuospatial representation of the text or by reconstructing word location from a temporal representation of the text content. These two processes are examined concerning text reading (Experiment 1) and text writing (Experiment 2). In each experiment, one condition assessed chance level, another assessed location performance when just the temporal dimension of a text is available, and a third assessed location performance when both the temporal and visuospatial dimensions of a text are available. The same pattern of results was observed in the two experiments. Namely, participants who are able to construct a visuospatial representation of their text are better able to locate words than participants who can only rely on temporal information. Location performances when only temporal information is available are above the chance level.

Keywords:

• Memory for word location
• Reading
• Writing
• Visuospatial encoding
• Temporal representation

Acknowledgements

Nathalie Le Bigot is now at the IfADo—Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, Dortmund, Germany. The authors would like to thank Kathleen O'Brien-Ramirez for her comments on a previous version of this paper.

Notes

¹This time limit was based on the mean time observed in a previous experiment to produce a one-page text in a control condition (Le Bigot et al., 2009) that was similar to the writing condition in the present experiment.