The Unimportance of Explicit Spatial Information in Serial Recall of Visually Presented Lists

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The superiority of auditory over visual presentation in short-term serial recall may be due to the fact that typically only temporal cues to order have been provided in the two modalities. Auditory information is usually ordered along a temporal continuum, whereas visual information is ordered spatially, as well. It is therefore possible that recall following visual presentation may benefit from spatial cues to order. Subjects were tested for serial recall of letter-sequences presented visually either with or without explicit spatial cues to order. No effect of any kind was found, a result which suggests (a) that spatial information is not utilized when it is redundant with temporal information and (b) that the auditory-visual difference would not be modified by the presence of explicit spatial cues to order.

This publication has 9 references indexed in Scilit: