Premium
The role of visual and spatial working memory in forming mental models derived from survey and route descriptions
Author(s) -
Meneghetti Chiara,
Labate Enia,
Pazzaglia Francesca,
Hamilton Colin,
Gyselinck Valérie
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/bjop.12193
Subject(s) - perspective (graphical) , recall , psychology , cognitive psychology , working memory , mental image , test (biology) , spatial memory , task (project management) , spatial ability , spatial analysis , spatial relation , spatial reference system , cognition , computer science , artificial intelligence , neuroscience , geography , ecology , management , remote sensing , economics , biology
This study examines the involvement of spatial and visual working memory ( WM ) in the construction of flexible spatial models derived from survey and route descriptions. Sixty young adults listened to environment descriptions, 30 from a survey perspective and the other 30 from a route perspective, while they performed spatial (spatial tapping [ ST ]) and visual (dynamic visual noise [ DVN ]) secondary tasks – believed to overload the spatial and visual working memory ( WM ) components, respectively – or no secondary task (control, C ). Their mental representations of the environment were tested by free recall and a verification test with both route and survey statements. Results showed that, for both recall tasks, accuracy was worse in the ST than in the C or DVN conditions. In the verification test, the effect of both ST and DVN was a decreasing accuracy for sentences testing spatial relations from the opposite perspective to the one learnt than if the perspective was the same; only ST had a stronger interference effect than the C condition for sentences from the opposite perspective from the one learnt. Overall, these findings indicate that both visual and spatial WM , and especially the latter, are involved in the construction of perspective‐flexible spatial models.