The impact of path crossing on visuo-spatial serial memory: Encoding or rehearsal effect?

Abstract

The determinants of visuo-spatial serial memory have been the object of little research, despite early evidence that not all sequences are equally remembered. Recently, empirical evidence was reported indicating that the complexity of the path formed by the to-be-remembered locations impacted on recall performance, defined for example by the presence of crossings in the path formed by successive locations (Parmentier, Elford, & Maybery, 2005). In this study, we examined whether this effect reflects rehearsal or encoding processes. We examined the effect of a retention interval and spatial interference on the ordered recall of spatial sequences with and without path crossings. Path crossings decreased recall performance, as did a retention interval. In line with the encoding hypothesis, but in contrast with the rehearsal hypothesis, the effect of crossing was not affected by the retention interval nor by tapping. The possible nature of the impact of path crossing on encoding mechanisms is discussed.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a research grant from the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) to the first author (Award Grant RES-000–22–1235). Thanks are due to Greg Elford and Dimitra Goudalaki for collecting the data, to Charlotte Howard for her feedback on an earlier version of this article, and to Gabriel Radvansky, Chris Jarrold, and two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments.