Abstract
In this experiment, we investigated the impact of gaze-directed spatiotemporal priming on visual-short term memory (VSTM). One experiment with four conditions was completed by 17 participants. Our memory display comprised three 2° Snodgrass stimuli presented sequentially at random locations, each for 400ms. Participants fixated each stimulus in turn. Following a retention interval activity (see below), in our test display, participants were shown a single stimulus from among those previously presented, and responded (yes/no) to indicate if it had appeared in the preceding memory display at the same spatial position. Four (counterbalanced) experimental conditions were run, differing in the nature of a retention-interval activity: 1. a series of blank 2° spatial markers repeating the positions and durations of the memory display stimuli were fixated; 2. the spatial markers repeated the positions of the memory display stimuli, but were temporally reversed; 3. the spatial markers were presented at locations that were horizontally mirrored with respect to the memory display stimuli; 4. the spatial marker remained stationary at the screen center. To verify compliance, and suppress articulatory rehearsal, within each retention-interval spatial marker, a random 2-digit number was displayed, which participants spoke aloud. Performance data (percent correct) were analyzed using a two-way ANOVA, with retention-interval activity (4-levels) and the N-back index of the probed stimulus position (3-levels) as within-subjects factors. A significant main effect for retention-interval activity was found [F(3,48)=15.97, p<0.01]; no significant effect for N-back position was found, nor a significant interaction effect. Retention-interval activity 1 (spatiotemporal repetition) produced significantly greater performance than all other retention-interval activities (pͰ4;0.01). No other differences between retention-interval activities were significant. These results suggest that gaze-directed priming of the locations of to-be-remembered stimuli in a forward direction supports VSTM maintenance; temporally and spatially-reversed gaze-directed priming produced no benefit, being equivalent to the absence of any spatiotemporal priming.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2013