Abstract
Previous studies showed that (a) performing pointing movements towards to-be-remembered locations enhanced their later recognition, and (b) in a joint-action condition, experimenter-performed pointing movements benefited memory to the same extent as self-performed movements. The present study replicated these findings and additionally recorded participants’ fixations towards studied arrays. Each trial involved the presentation of two consecutive spatial arrays, where each item occupied a different spatial location. The item locations of one array were encoded by mere visual observation (the no-move array), whereas the locations of the other array were encoded by observation plus pointing movements (the move array). Critically, in Experiment 1, participants took turns with the experimenter in pointing towards the move arrays (joint-action condition), while in Experiment 2 pointing was performed only by the experimenter (passive condition). The results showed that the locations of move arrays were recognized better than the locations of no-move arrays in Experiment 1, but not in Experiment 2. The pattern of eye-fixations was in line with behavioral findings, indicating that in Experiment 1, fixations to the locations of move arrays were higher in number and longer in duration than fixations to the locations of no-move arrays, irrespective of the agent who performed the movements. In contrast, no differences emerged in Experiment 2. We propose that, in the joint-action condition, self- and other-performed pointing movements are coded at the same representational level and their functional equivalency is reflected in a similar pattern of eye-fixations.
Highlights
In the working memory model originally proposed by Baddeley and Hitch (1974), visuospatial working memory (VSWM) represents the subsystem devoted to the elaboration and maintenance of visual and spatial information. Logie (1995) has further divided this sub-system into a passive visual cache and a movement-based inner scribe associated with rehearsal1 O.P
The item locations of one array were encoded through mere visual observation, while the item locations of the other array were encoded through visual observation accompanied by pointing movements
All the stimuli were displayed in black against a grey background, including the fixation cross and the letter cues for the pointing instructions (‘P’ for the participant, ‘E’ for the experimenter; both displayed in Times New Roman, size 40 pt), which indicated who had to perform the pointing movements towards the locations of the upcoming move array
Summary
In the working memory model originally proposed by Baddeley and Hitch (1974), visuospatial working memory (VSWM) represents the subsystem devoted to the elaboration and maintenance of visual and spatial information (see Baddeley, 2012, for a review). Logie (1995) has further divided this sub-system into a passive visual cache and a movement-based inner scribe associated with rehearsal1 O.P. In the working memory model originally proposed by Baddeley and Hitch (1974), visuospatial working memory (VSWM) represents the subsystem devoted to the elaboration and maintenance of visual and spatial information (see Baddeley, 2012, for a review). A large body of research has investigated how movements influence encoding in VSWM and most studies using the dual-task paradigm have reported significant detrimental effects of movement-based secondary tasks when the performed movements were unrelated to the to-beremembered stimuli (e.g., Baddeley & Lieberman, 1980; Quinn & Ralston, 1986; Rossi-Arnaud, Pieroni, Spataro, & Baddeley, 2012a; Vandierendonck, Kemps, Fastame, & Szmalec, 2004; see Quinn, 2008, for a review). Other studies have demonstrated that pointing movements performed towards the to-be-remembered locations can result in a beneficial effect on visuospatial memory. The results of an immediate memory task showed that the locations of the move arrays were recognized
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