Active processing in visual and visuospatial working memory

Abstract

Keywords Visual AE Visuospatial working memory AEfMRI AE Mental rotationBackgroundA distinction between visual and visuospatial workingmemory is discussed recently in the literature. Thepresent study aimed to investigate whether similarneuronal mechanisms underlie the manipulation andactive processing of visual and visuospatial stimuli withlow and high working memory demands.MethodsSimultaneous and successive mental rotation andidentity judgement of 2-D matrices and 3-D cubefigures were contrasted using functional MagneticResonance Imaging (fMRI).ResultsResults demonstrate that activation patterns duringmental rotation with low working memory demandsdiffer depending on stimulus type (2-D vs. 3-D).Comparison of simultaneous mental rotation ofmatrices and 3-D cubes resulted in activation of frontalas well as inferior and superior parietal cortices. Theopposite contrast (mental rotation of 3-D cubes vs. 2-Dmatrices) yielded only frontal cortex activation. Mentalrotation of 2-D matrices and 3-D cubes with increasedworking memory demands yielded nearly overlappingactivation patterns.ConclusionConverging and overlapping activation patterns for2-D and 3-D stimuli with increased working memorydemands suggest that visual and visuospatial workingmemory share the same neural mechanism under spe-cific conditions (see Suchan et al. 2006). Results arediscussed in terms of the distributed ‘continuum’model as suggested by Cornoldi and Vecchi (2000).References