title: Order information in verbal working memory shifts the subjective midpoint in both the line bisection and the landmark tasks.
abstract: A largely substantiated view in the domain of working memory is that the maintenance of serial order is achieved by generating associations of each item with an independent representation of its position, so-called position markers. Recent studies reported that the ordinal position of an item in verbal working memory interacts with spatial processing. This suggests that position markers might be spatial in nature. However, these interactions were so far observed in tasks implying a clear binary categorization of space (i.e., with left and right responses or targets). Such binary categorizations leave room for alternative interpretations, such as congruency between non-spatial categorical codes for ordinal position (e.g., begin and end) and spatial categorical codes for response (e.g., left and right). Here we discard this interpretation by providing evidence that this interaction can also be observed in a task that draws upon a continuous processing of space, the line bisection task. Specifically, bisections are modulated by ordinal position in verbal working memory, with lines bisected more towards the right after retrieving items from the end compared to the beginning of the memorized sequence. This supports the idea that position markers are intrinsically spatial in nature.
authors.affiliation: a Center for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences , ULB Neuroscience Institute, Université Libre de Bruxelles , Brussels , Belgium.
authors.forename: Sophie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Antoine
authors.affiliation: a Center for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences , ULB Neuroscience Institute, Université Libre de Bruxelles , Brussels , Belgium.
authors.forename: Mariagrazia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ranzini
authors.affiliation: b Center for Neurogenomics and Cognitive Research , Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam , Amsterdam , Netherlands.
authors.forename: Titia
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gebuis
authors.affiliation: c Department of Experimental Psychology , University of Ghent , Gent , Belgium.
authors.forename: Jean-Philippe
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: van Dijck
authors.affiliation: a Center for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences , ULB Neuroscience Institute, Université Libre de Bruxelles , Brussels , Belgium.
authors.forename: Wim
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Gevers
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001244:Association; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D065855:Spatial Processing / Q000502:physiology*; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Bisection tasks; Ordinal information processing; Spatial attention; Working memory