Reading direction interacts with spatial processes of temporal order verbal working memory: evidence from Iranian right-to-left readers

Abstract

ABSTRACT Reading direction affects cognitive processes such as spatial processing and attention. Testing Farsi right-to-left readers, we investigated the effect of reading direction on the involved spatial and attentional processes in a verbal working memory task. Previous research in left-to-right readers has shown that serial order in verbal WM is encoded spatially from left to right and that mechanisms of spatial attention operate on these mental representations. First, we confirmed that the spatial representation of serial information in WM follows the right-to-left reading direction of Farsi. Second, we demonstrated the influence of reading direction on the distribution of spatial attention over the reading-direction-contingent mental representation of serial information in WM. Behavioural RTs and neural markers of spatial attention shifts (EDAN and ADAN ERPs and lateralised posterior alpha activity) confirm the right-to-left representation of serial order in WM and the involvement of spatial attention in retrieving items from this mnemonic space.