Abstract
Classic studies of short-term memory have used a sequential presentation method for memory items whereas many of recent visual short-term memory (VSTM) studies have used a change detection paradigm in which items for memory are presented at the same time. Despite the fact that the sequential presentation of memory items can lead to a different temporal context for VSTM encoding compared to the simultaneous presentation, only few studies have addressed a concern about whether such contextual difference in the testing paradigms may lead to a substantial difference in VSTM performance. In the present study, we tested if presenting two sets of memory items sequentially can lead to any significant difference in change detection performance compared to presenting the sets simultaneously. In Experiment 1, subjects were asked to remember colors of six memory items that would be either displayed simultaneously or displayed sequentially with two subsets of three items. For a test array for change detection, we also presented test items either simultaneously or sequentially. In Experiment 2, we manipulate display set size into 2, 4, 6, 8 items across the simultaneous and sequential presentation conditions. We found the patterns of change detection accuracy between the simultaneous and sequential presentation conditions were virtual identical to each other, and found no difference even when the setsize was manipulated. The results indicate that the presenting memory items simultaneously or sequentially does not affect the change detection performance, and suggest that temporal context for VSTM encoding may not play a significant role for accurate formation and recognition of memory representation in change detection.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2012