Time, space, and memory for order

Abstract

Information about the order of items in a sequence can be conveyed either spatially or temporally. In the present investigation, we examined whether these different modes of presentation map onto compatible mental representations of serial order. We examined this issue in three immediate serial-recall experiments, in which participants recalled lists of letters in the temporal order in which they had appeared. Each letter in a to-be-remembered sequence was presented in a unique spatial position, with the order of these spatial positions progressing from either left to right or right to left. In this way, the visually presented lists contained both temporal and spatial order information. Recall of the temporal order information was more accurate with congruent spatial order information-that is, when the letters progressed from left to right, following the typical reading direction of English-than when the spatial order information was incongruent. These results suggest compatible representations of serial order when sequences are conveyed spatially and temporally.