title: An isolation effect in serial memory for spatial information.
abstract: This paper reports the first demonstration of an isolation effect or von Restorff effect (von Restorff, 1933) in the context of a spatial-memory task: Short-term serial recall was enhanced for both the location and the serial position of one red dot presented amongst a sequence of otherwise black dots. When the serial position of the isolate was fixed, the spatial isolation effect only emerged when participants received a control block of trials before the block of isolation trials (Experiment 1). However, when the serial position of the isolate was varied across isolation trials, an isolation effect was still produced regardless of condition order (Experiment 2). It is suggested that both temporal grouping strategies and greater item-specific processing may have contributed to the enhanced retention of the isolate.
authors.affiliation: Ecole de Psychologie, Université Laval, Québec, Canada.
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Guérard
authors.forename: Robert W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Hughes
authors.forename: Sébastien
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tremblay
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D012691:Serial Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis