Asymmetric binding in serial memory for verbal and spatial information

Abstract

As the number of studies showing that items can be retained as bound representations in memory increases, researchers are beginning to investigate how the different features are bound together. In the present study, we examined the relative importances of the verbal and spatial features in serial memory for visual stimuli. Participants were asked to memorize the order of series of letters presented visually in different locations on the computer screen. The results showed that manipulating the phonological similarity of the letters affected recall of their spatial locations, but that increasing the complexity of the spatial pattern had no effect on recall of the letters. This finding was observed in both order reconstruction (Exps. 1 and 2) and probe serial recall (Exps. 3 and 4), suggesting that verbal-spatial binding in serial memory for visual information is asymmetric.

Binding “what” and “where” in auditory working memory: An asymmetrical association between sound identity and sound location

“…item location), whereas attending to Feature B does not cause the automatic encoding of Feature A. Such an asymmetry has been reported both in the visual domain (Elsley & Parmentier, 2009;Guérard, Morey, Lagacé & Tremblay, 2013;Guérard, Tremblay, & Saint-Aubin, J., 2009) and in the auditory domain (Maybery et al, 2009). In particular, it appears that location is incidentally encoded in vision, and identity is incidentally encoded in hearing.…”

Visual-spatial and verbal-spatial binding in working memory.

“…The occurrence of some kind of verbal recoding of the irrelevant spatial information is assumed, in which articulatory suppression functions as an additional demand on memory, thus impairing performance. Morey et al (2013) argued that once the binding occurs, this representation becomes more vulnerable to cross-interference than the memory of isolated features. Otherwise, binding with the rehearsal feature is assumed to be provided by a mechanism that utilizes resources that are external to those that are involved with the features that are being integrated.…”

“…The core argument of the associative approach concerns the asymmetric effect of binding in working memory. Based on the premise that the incidental conjunction of features occurs, when one feature is tested, the other one is expected to be automatically retrieved (Guérard, Morey, Lagacé, & Tremblay, 2013). However, the literature shows that this is not true in all situations.…”

“…If the features contribute unequally to the formation of the integrated representation, then we predicted that the pattern of effects of changing the irrelevant feature depends on the relevant dimension type in the task. Asymmetry in the conjunction would be found if the memory for feature "A" depends on feature "B," although the recall of feature "B" occurs independently of feature "A" (Guérard et al, 2013;Elsley & Parmentier, 2009).…”

“…However, the literature shows that this is not true in all situations. Growing evidence indicates asymmetry in the conjunction of features in the simultaneous presentation of stimuli, such as in the studies by Maybery et al (2009), Campo et al (2010, and Morey (2009), and the sequential presentation of stimuli, such as in the studies by Guérard, Tremblay, and Saint-Aubin (2009), Morey and Mall (2012), and Guérard et al (2013).…”