title: What you say matters: exploring visual-verbal interactions in visual working memory.
abstract: The aim of this study was to explore whether the content of a simple concurrent verbal load task determines the extent of its interference on memory for coloured shapes. The task consisted of remembering four visual items while repeating aloud a pair of words that varied in terms of imageability and relatedness to the task set. At test, a cue appeared that was either the colour or the shape of one of the previously seen objects, with participants required to select the object's other feature from a visual array. During encoding and retention, there were four verbal load conditions: (a) a related, shape-colour pair (from outside the experimental set, i.e., "pink square"); (b) a pair of unrelated but visually imageable, concrete, words (i.e., "big elephant"); (c) a pair of unrelated and abstract words (i.e., "critical event"); and (d) no verbal load. Results showed differential effects of these verbal load conditions. In particular, imageable words (concrete and related conditions) interfered to a greater degree than abstract words. Possible implications for how visual working memory interacts with verbal memory and long-term memory are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Departament de Psicologia Bàsica, Evolutiva i de l'Educació, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. judit.mate@uab.cat
authors.forename: Judit
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mate
authors.forename: Richard J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.forename: Josep
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Baqués
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D011939:Mental Recall; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013997:Time Factors; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult