Vision and Kinesthesis in Spatial Short-Term Memory

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Abstract
This investigation examined the effects of different localizing cues on the precision with which subjects can recall the position of a target in space. The availability of the cues—vision, kinesthesis, or both—was varied during both learning and recall. Subjects (age range 26 to 58 yr.) placed the stimulus or watched it being placed. The stimulus was removed, and subjects replaced or indicated its replacement location. Results show a striking similarity of performance for all subjects and significant performance differences relative to the different cues. The results provide information about intramodal and intermodal visual and kinesthetic transfer effects and about the effects of unimodal and multimodal input in such transfer. Results confirm dominance of vision over kinesthesis, i.e., “kinesthetic memory” does not provide as accurate localizing information as does “visual memory.”