spatial change in multisensory distractors impact on spatial and verbal short-term memroy

Spatial Change in Multisensory Distractors Impact on Spatial and Verbal Short-term MemoryErik Marsja1, John Everett Marsh2, Gregory Neely1, Patrik Hanson1, Jessica K-Ljungberg1,3

1Department of Psychology, Umeå University, Sweden2School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, UK3School of Psychology, Cardiff University, UK

Contact: erik.marsja at umu.se, erik at marsja.se, http://www.marsja.se

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.marsja.se/

Domains of short-term memory

May 2, 2023IMRF2016 - Marsja - Spatial Change in Multisensory Distractors 2

Distraction & STM

• Irrelevant sounds makes us forget

• Changing-state vs Steady-state (see Dalton & Hughes,

2014):–”A-B-A-B-A-B-A-B-A” vs. ”A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A”


Distraction & STM

• Sudden and unexpected changes (i.e., deviants; e.g., ”a-a-a-b-a-a-a”)

• Temporal deviants (Hughes et al., 2005)

• Change in voice (i.e., from male to female; Hughes et al., 2007)

• Change of sound (e.g., Lange, 2005)


Domain-general or domain-specific?• Domain-general:

– E.g., Cowan’s Model of STM (1988, 1995)

• Domain-specific:– Primacy model (e.g., the phonological loop; e.g., Page & Norris,

2003)– Baddeley’s Model (e.g., Baddeley, 2015)


Multisensory perspective

• Predictive coding framework (e.g., Quak, 2015):

– Unexpected events -> mismatch –> model update

– STM is amodal –> multisensory• Representations held in memory regardless of domain

or modality


Spatial vs. Verbal STM & Distraction• Deviants do not affect spatial (Lange, 2005)

– Only affected verbal STM– Visual spatial deviants

• Rectangles changing color• Distractors moving prior to target -> small effect

STM consists of at least spatial and verbal domains (Lange, 2005)


Spatial vs. Verbal STM

• Visual deviants less potent (Leiva et al., 2015)

• Spatial change not examined

• Tactile deviants

• Multisensory May 2, 2023IMRF2016 - Marsja - Spatial Change in

Multisensory Distractors 8

The current study

• Domain general;– A spatial change (i.e., from one side of the body

to the other) would disrupt performance in both spatial and verbal STM tasks

• Domain specific;– A spatial change should disrupt performance in

the spatial task only


Method - sample

• N = 29

• Age = 18 – 42

• Reported:– Normal hearing and seing

– No somatosensory deficitsMay 2, 2023IMRF2016 - Marsja - Spatial Change in

Multisensory Distractors 10

Method – STM Tasks

• Serial-recall (i.e., recall the items in the order they were presented)

– Verbal task

– Spatial task


Method – STM tasks

• 7 targets presented one at a time

- Spatial: dots on a 5x5 matrix

- Verbal: 7 digits from the set of 1-9


Method – distractors

• Multisensory stream– 10 distractors


Method – distractors

• Standard trials:– Sounds and vibrations on one side of the body

(e.g., right ear & right upper arm)– 80 % of trials

• Deviant trials:– Change from one side of the body to the other

(e.g., from right to left)– 20 % of trials


Method – durations


Results

• Proportion of recalled items

• 2 (Task: Spatial, Verbal) x 2 (trial type: Standard, Deviant) ANOVA for repeated measures


Results


Conclusions


Conclusions

• Predictive coding framework:– MMN (Winkler, et al.m 2007)

– Violations of expectation• Forced-choice paradigms (e.g., Parmentier et al.,, 2014)

• Short-term memory (e.g., Vachon et al., 2012)

– Model update -> lesser activation of the memory traces? (cf., Cowan, 1995)


Next steps

• Spatial change did affect both tasks:

– We do not know:• Auditory change?• Tactile change?• Both?

• Will another type of change affect both tasks?


Thank you for your attention!


Dr. Marsh Dr. Neely Dr. Hansson

Dr. K-Ljungberg

spatial change in multisensory distractors impact on spatial and verbal short-term memroy

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