A comparative study of working memory: Immediate serial spatial recall in baboons (Papio papio) and humans

Fagot, Joël; Lillo, Carlo De

doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.10.003

Cited by 35 publications

(37 citation statements)

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“…SSR has been extensively employed in the study of individual differences in working-memory (Cornoldi and Vecchi, 2003) and as a predictor of scholastic achievement (Jarvis and Gathercole, 2003; St Clair-Thompson, 2007). Because of its non-verbal nature, the assessment of SSR has been used for the comparison of memory skills in monkeys and humans, with important implications for the evaluation of primate models of human memory (Botvinick et al, 2009; Fagot and De Lillo, 2011). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatio-Temporal Structure, Path Characteristics, and Perceptual Grouping in Immediate Serial Spatial Recall

2016

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Immediate serial spatial recall measures the ability to retain sequences of locations in short-term memory and is considered the spatial equivalent of digit span. It is tested by requiring participants to reproduce sequences of movements performed by an experimenter or displayed on a monitor. Different organizational factors dramatically affect serial spatial recall but they are often confounded or underspecified. Untangling them is crucial for the characterization of working-memory models and for establishing the contribution of structure and memory capacity to spatial span. We report five experiments assessing the relative role and independence of factors that have been reported in the literature. Experiment 1 disentangled the effects of spatial clustering and path-length by manipulating the distance of items displayed on a touchscreen monitor. Long-path sequences segregated by spatial clusters were compared with short-path sequences not segregated by clusters. Recall was more accurate for sequences segregated by clusters independently from path-length. Experiment 2 featured conditions where temporal pauses were introduced between or within cluster boundaries during the presentation of sequences with the same paths. Thus, the temporal structure of the sequences was either consistent or inconsistent with a hierarchical representation based on segmentation by spatial clusters but the effect of structure could not be confounded with effects of path-characteristics. Pauses at cluster boundaries yielded more accurate recall, as predicted by a hierarchical model. In Experiment 3, the systematic manipulation of sequence structure, path-length, and presence of path-crossings of sequences showed that structure explained most of the variance, followed by the presence/absence of path-crossings, and path-length. Experiments 4 and 5 replicated the results of the previous experiments in immersive virtual reality navigation tasks where the viewpoint of the observer changed dynamically during encoding and recall. This suggested that the effects of structure in spatial span are not dependent on perceptual grouping processes induced by the aerial view of the stimulus array typically afforded by spatial recall tasks. These results demonstrate the independence of coding strategies based on structure from effects of path characteristics and perceptual grouping in immediate serial spatial recall.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatio-Temporal Structure, Path Characteristics, and Perceptual Grouping in Immediate Serial Spatial Recall

2016

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“…Participants must repeat a previously-viewed, serially-demonstrated target sequence. Investigations assessing serial spatial memory span have implemented the Corsi block-tapping task with nine blocks (CBT; (Corsi, 1972)), or target locations presented on a screen (Avons, 2007;Fagot & De Lillo, 2011;Parmentier, Elford, & Mayberry, 2005). The length of the sequence repeated correctly represents the spatial span; immediate span for block-tapping was originally reported to be 4.9 for normal young adults (average age: 28.1 years; (Corsi, 1972)).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human short-term spatial memory: Precision predicts capacity

Lavenex

Boujon

Ndarugendamwo

et al. 2015

Cognitive Psychology

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Here, we aimed to determine the capacity of human short-term memory for allocentric spatial information in a real-world setting. Young adults were tested on their ability to learn, on a trial-unique basis, and remember over a 1-min interval the location(s) of 1, 3, 5, or 7 illuminating pads, among 23 pads distributed in a 4 m Â 4 m arena surrounded by curtains on three sides. Participants had to walk to and touch the pads with their foot to illuminate the goal locations. In contrast to the predictions from classical slot models of working memory capacity limited to a fixed number of items, i.e., Miller's magical number 7 or Cowan's magical number 4, we found that the number of visited locations to find the goals was consistently about 1.6 times the number of goals, whereas the number of correct choices before erring and the number of errorless trials varied with memory load even when memory load was below the hypothetical memory capacity. In contrast to resource models of visual working memory, we found no evidence that memory resources were evenly distributed among unlimited numbers of items to be remembered. Instead, we found that memory E-mail address: pamela.bantalavenex@unil.ch (P. Banta Lavenex).for even one individual location was imprecise, and that memory performance for one location could be used to predict memory performance for multiple locations. Our findings are consistent with a theoretical model suggesting that the precision of the memory for individual locations might determine the capacity of human shortterm memory for spatial information.

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“…Our procedure was inspired by Fagot and De Lillo (2011) who demonstrated that baboons can recall patterns of targets from memory and reproduce them on a touchscreen (see also Basile and Hampton 2011). In Experiment 1, baboons had to recall and reproduce on a touchscreen the location of two colored squares (hereafter, the ''targets'') on a 4 9 3 grid of gray squares.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of metacognitive monitoring and control in baboons (Papio papio)

2015

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Metacognition refers to the ability of an organism to evaluate its states of knowledge (metacognitive monitoring) and engage in appropriate information-seeking behaviors when a lack of knowledge is detected (metacognitive control). This study assessed metacognitive monitoring and control in three Guinea baboons (Papio papio). Monkeys were required to report on a touchscreen the location of two target stimuli that had previously appeared briefly on a grid. They could either respond directly or use a "Repeat" key providing an opportunity to repeat the target stimuli. In Experiment 1, the baboons used the Repeat key more frequently in difficult trials and transferred this use of the key to novel conditions. Two baboons showed higher accuracy when they declined using the key compared to Baseline trials in which the key was not available, suggesting accurate metacognitive monitoring judgments. The same two baboons were consistently faster at reporting the targets' locations after a repetition of the stimulus. In Experiment 2, the baboons had to choose between two Repeat keys, one for each target. Two baboons showed a preference for repeating the presentation of the less visible target, suggesting that they identified what information they lack. Overall, results support the hypothesis of metacognitive monitoring in baboons, and also provide limited evidence for metacognitive control. We propose that tests requiring subjects to choose between several metacognitive responses in computerized tasks provide a suitable new approach for studying targeted information-seeking behaviors in animals.

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A comparative study of working memory: Immediate serial spatial recall in baboons (Papio papio) and humans

Cited by 35 publications

References 51 publications

Spatio-Temporal Structure, Path Characteristics, and Perceptual Grouping in Immediate Serial Spatial Recall

Spatio-Temporal Structure, Path Characteristics, and Perceptual Grouping in Immediate Serial Spatial Recall

Human short-term spatial memory: Precision predicts capacity

Assessment of metacognitive monitoring and control in baboons (Papio papio)

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