In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o This research investigates how visuo-spatial abilities (such as mental rotation — MR —...

Experimental evidence and meta-analyses offer some support for gender-related differences in visuo-spatial ability. However, few studies addressed this issue in an ecological context and/or in everyday tasks implying spatial abilities, such as geographical orientation. Moreover, the relation of specific strategies and gender is still unclear. In the present investigation, we compared men and wo...

Developmental studies have shown that visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM) performance improves throughout childhood and adolescence into young adulthood. The neural basis of this protracted development is poorly understood. In this study, we used functional MRI (fMRI) to examine VSWM function in children, adolescents, and young adults, ages 7-22. Subjects performed a 2-back VSWM experiment that...

The paper studies whether visuospatial working memory (VSWM) and, specifically, recall of sequential-spatial information, can be improved by metacognitive training. Twenty-two fourth-grade children were involved in seven sessions of sequential-spatial memory training, while twenty-four children attended lessons given by their teacher. The posttraining evaluation demonstrated a specific improvem...

There is little consensus regarding the specific processes responsible for encoding, maintenance, and retrieval of information in visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM). One influential theory is that VSWM may involve activation of the eye-movement (oculomotor) system. In this study we experimentally prevented healthy participants from planning or executing saccadic eye-movements during the encodi...

Working memory (WM) has been hypothesised to be impaired in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, there are few studies reported on tests measuring visuo-spatial WM (VSWM) in ADHD. Some of these studies used paradigms including episodic memory, others only used low memory loads. In the present study we used a VSWM test that has not been used previously in ADHD research. The ...

Working memory (WM) has been hypothesised to be impaired in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, there are few studies reported on tests measuring visuo-spatial WM (VSWM) in ADHD. Some of these studies used paradigms including episodic memory, others only used low memory loads. In the present study we used a VSWM test that has not been used previously in ADHD research. The ...

The aim of this research was to investigate how spatial self-assessments and spatial cognitive abilities jointly influence the construction of mental representations derived from spatial descriptions. Two studies were conducted using the path models approach to test to what extent spatial self-assessments (Study 1, 194 participants) and the combination of the latter with spatial abilities (Stud...

Over the last decade, many studies have demonstrated that visuospatial working memory (VSWM) can be divided into separate subsystems dedicated to the retention of visual patterns and their serial order. Impaired VSWM has been suggested to exacerbate left visual neglect in right-brain-damaged individuals. The aim of this study was to investigate the segregation between spatial-sequential and spa...

The amount of information that can be retained in working memory (WM) is limited. Limitations of WM capacity have been the subject of intense research, especially in trying to specify algorithmic models for WM. Comparatively, neural circuit perspectives have barely been used to test WM limitations in behavioral experiments. Here we used a neuronal microcircuit model for visuo-spatial WM (vsWM) ...