Effects of Complexity on Visuo-spatial Working Memory

Visuo-spatial Working Memory

Complexity effects in visuo-spatial working memory: implications for the role of long-term memory.

Several studies have shown that the capacity of visuo-spatial working memory is limited by complexity. Using a variant of the Corsi blocks task, this paper investigates the effect of complexity of the to-be-remembered path on visuo-spatial memory span. Redundancy was determined by three Gestalt principles: symmetry, repetition, and continuation. Experiment 1 revealed an effect of path complexit...

The Effect of Stress on Visuo-Spatial Working Memory

Stressful events are known to affect a range of cognitive functions, such as attention, memory formation and memory recall. With regard to visuo-spatial working memory, the relationship is particularly complex. In part, this complexity arises from an incomplete picture of visuo-spatial working memory that does not fit well with the experimental literature. The aim of the present study is to rec...

Visuo-spatial Working Memory and the Comprehension of Iconic Gestures

Multi-modal discourse comprehension requires speakers to combine information from speech and gestures. To date, little research has addressed the cognitive resources that underlie these processes. Here we used a dual task paradigm to test the relative importance of verbal and visuo-spatial working memory in speech-gesture comprehension. Healthy, collegeaged participants encoded either a series ...

Functional neuroanatomy of visuo-spatial working memory in Turner syndrome.

Turner syndrome (TS), a genetic disorder characterized by the absence of an X chromosome in females, has been associated with cognitive and visuo-spatial processing impairments. We utilized functional MRI (fMRI) to investigate the neural substrates that underlie observed deficits in executive functioning and visuo-spatial processing. Eleven females with TS and 14 typically developing females (a...