TITLE:
Fixation Effects on Forward and Backward Recall in a Spatial Working Memory Task
AUTHORS:
Yuhei Oi, Yoshifumi Ikeda, Hideyuki Okuzumi, Mitsuru Kokubun, Toyohiko Hamada, Takashi Sawa
KEYWORDS:
Corsi-Like Task, Eye Movement, Serial Recall, Short-Term Memory
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.6 No.6,
May
13,
2015
ABSTRACT: This study was designed to investigate
whether fixation on the items to be remembered provided a beneficial effect on
spatial working memory. A spatial working memory task based on the Corsi blocks
task was assigned to 24 participants (12 men, 12 women; M age = 21.5 yr., SD =
1.3, range = 18 - 24) who were later asked to recall a sequence of targets in
forward and backward order. When participants were asked to memorize the
sequence while maintaining fixation on each target, both beneficial and
disruptive effects were found in the recall performance for backward recall,
but not for forward recall. Results suggest that some memory processes that
proceed without fixation on the presented items are more important for backward
recall.