VISUOSPATIAL WORKING-MEMORY - STRUCTURES AND VARIABLES AFFECTING A CAPACITY MEASURE

The present paper examines the issue of the capacity of visuo-spatial working memory. A series of experiments test the hypothesis that two d ifferent components are critical in visuospatial working memory (passi ve store and active imagery operations), and, thereafter, attempt to s pecify the variables that affect the capacity of the passive store com ponent. In the experiments, congenitally blind and sighted participant s were asked to remember the spatial positions of target objects in tw o-dimensional matrices, with or without simultaneously performing a se quence of spatially-based imagery operations. We considered both the p ositions recall performance (the passive storage component) and the se quential imagery processing performance (the active processing compone nt). We suggest that the two components of visuo-spatial working memor y are independent. We also propose that both the number of relevant ma trices and the number of target objects within each matrix affect the capacity of visuo-spatial working memory, with the latter factor possi bly playing a greater role than the former one.