We investigated the nature of the information stored in visuo-spatial short-term memory in two experiments. In the first experiment, a spatial localization task was performed simultaneously with articulatory suppression and arithmetical subtraction tasks. The articulatory suppression has a negative effect on the performance with letters, but not with visual patterns. Despite that, the recall of the letters is better than the recall of the visual patterns. This result suggests that the storage of the visual patterns does not use the phonological loop, and that the articulatory suppression, even if it inhibits the use of the phonological loop, cannot inhibit the access to the semantic information. In the second experiment we established the effect of the visual similarity on the capacity of memory for the spatial position. The results confirm the use of visual codes and suggest that the storage capacity of the visual stimuli is limited, but not restricted to the recency items.
Working memory; visuo-spatial memory; articulatory suppression; arithmetic task
