When visual and verbal memories compete: evidence of cross-domain limits in working memory.
Recently, investigators have suggested that visual working memory operates in a manner unaffected by the retention of verbal material. We question that conclusion on the basis of a simple dual-task experiment designed to rule out phonological memory and to identify a more central faculty as the source of a shared limitation. With a visual working memory task in which two arrays of color squares were to be compared, performance was unaffected by concurrent recitation of a two-digit list or a known seven-digit sequence. However, visual working memory performance decreased markedly when paired with a load of seven random digits. This was not a simple tradeoff, inasmuch as errors on the visual array and high digit load tasks tended to co-occur. Working memory for digits and visual information thus are both subject to at least one type of shared limit, not just domain-specific limitations. The nature of the shared limit is discussed.
Morey
Candice C
CC
Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, 207 McAlester Hall, Columbia, MO 65211, USA. clcfyb@mizzou.edu
Cowan
Nelson
N
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D013067:Speech Perception; D014796:Visual Perception