Spatial Change in Multisensory Distractors Impact on Spatial and Verbal Short-term MemoryErik Marsja1, John Everett Marsh2, Gregory Neely1, Patrik Hanson1, Jessica K-Ljungberg1,3
1Department of Psychology, Umeå University, Sweden2School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, UK3School of Psychology, Cardiff University, UK
Contact: erik.marsja at umu.se, erik at marsja.se, http://www.marsja.se
Domains of short-term memory
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Distraction & STM
• Irrelevant sounds makes us forget
• Changing-state vs Steady-state (see Dalton & Hughes,
2014):–”A-B-A-B-A-B-A-B-A” vs. ”A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A”
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Distraction & STM
• Sudden and unexpected changes (i.e., deviants; e.g., ”a-a-a-b-a-a-a”)
• Temporal deviants (Hughes et al., 2005)
• Change in voice (i.e., from male to female; Hughes et al., 2007)
• Change of sound (e.g., Lange, 2005)
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Domain-general or domain-specific?• Domain-general:
– E.g., Cowan’s Model of STM (1988, 1995)
• Domain-specific:– Primacy model (e.g., the phonological loop; e.g., Page & Norris,
2003)– Baddeley’s Model (e.g., Baddeley, 2015)
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Multisensory perspective
• Predictive coding framework (e.g., Quak, 2015):
– Unexpected events -> mismatch –> model update
– STM is amodal –> multisensory• Representations held in memory regardless of domain
or modality
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Spatial vs. Verbal STM & Distraction• Deviants do not affect spatial (Lange, 2005)
– Only affected verbal STM– Visual spatial deviants
• Rectangles changing color• Distractors moving prior to target -> small effect
STM consists of at least spatial and verbal domains (Lange, 2005)
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Spatial vs. Verbal STM
• Visual deviants less potent (Leiva et al., 2015)
• Spatial change not examined
• Tactile deviants
• Multisensory May 2, 2023IMRF2016 - Marsja - Spatial Change in
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The current study
• Domain general;– A spatial change (i.e., from one side of the body
to the other) would disrupt performance in both spatial and verbal STM tasks
• Domain specific;– A spatial change should disrupt performance in
the spatial task only
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Method - sample
• N = 29
• Age = 18 – 42
• Reported:– Normal hearing and seing
– No somatosensory deficitsMay 2, 2023IMRF2016 - Marsja - Spatial Change in
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Method – STM Tasks
• Serial-recall (i.e., recall the items in the order they were presented)
– Verbal task
– Spatial task
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Method – STM tasks
• 7 targets presented one at a time
- Spatial: dots on a 5x5 matrix
- Verbal: 7 digits from the set of 1-9
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Method – distractors
• Multisensory stream– 10 distractors
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Method – distractors
• Standard trials:– Sounds and vibrations on one side of the body
(e.g., right ear & right upper arm)– 80 % of trials
• Deviant trials:– Change from one side of the body to the other
(e.g., from right to left)– 20 % of trials
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Method – durations
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Results
• Proportion of recalled items
• 2 (Task: Spatial, Verbal) x 2 (trial type: Standard, Deviant) ANOVA for repeated measures
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Results
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Conclusions
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Conclusions
• Predictive coding framework:– MMN (Winkler, et al.m 2007)
– Violations of expectation• Forced-choice paradigms (e.g., Parmentier et al.,, 2014)
• Short-term memory (e.g., Vachon et al., 2012)
– Model update -> lesser activation of the memory traces? (cf., Cowan, 1995)
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Next steps
• Spatial change did affect both tasks:
– We do not know:• Auditory change?• Tactile change?• Both?
• Will another type of change affect both tasks?
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Thank you for your attention!
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Dr. Marsh Dr. Neely Dr. Hansson
Dr. K-Ljungberg