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Different working memory capacity in normal young adults for visual and tactile letter recognition task
Author(s) -
BLISS IRINA,
HÄMÄLÄINEN HEIKKI
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9450.2005.00454.x
Subject(s) - psychology , task (project management) , working memory , cognitive psychology , visual memory , tactile stimuli , audiology , cognition , neuroscience , sensory system , medicine , management , economics
Thirty‐nine young adult participants performing the visual and tactile n‐back working memory task were compared. In the visual task, letters were presented on a computer screen and in the tactile task, plastic letters embedded on a board were explored tactually. The amount of incorrect responses increased with increasing memory load in both tasks, but was significantly lower in the visual task. Subgrouping the participants with extreme performances into “skilled” and “poor” performers showed that the best performance was found among “skilled” visual performers, and the worst one among “poor” tactile performers. There was more interindividual variation among tactile than visual performance. We conclude that tactile working memory capacity, measured here by letter recognition and letter memory, is generally more limited and shows more variability than visual memory in normal sighted participants.