Where did I park? Connecting lower-level and higher-level memory processes

Performance relationships on various behaviorally tested modalities i.e., verbal, and visual-spatial, supported the possibility that lower-level, working memory measures might be predictive of higher-level, long-term memory performances. Experiment 1 examined these relationships as they related to modality and the type of task/test used (Visual-Spatial Working Memory Span vs. Long-Term Memory Ability Tests). Span was related to performance on a standardized test of reading comprehension but not to the ability to mentally rotate objects. Thus, Experiment 2 examined the Span Task, finding that a central executive-consuming secondary task reduced span, but incongruent loop interference did not. This supported the task as a measure of working memory, according to Alan Baddeley’s fractionated model, and its use in subsequent experiments. Experiment 3 explored higher-level self-reported memory processes for parking location. Five factors of parking memory: Internal and External Interference Susceptibility, Concern, Confidence, and Strategy, were derived. An episodic component likely underlay both working and long-term location memory processes. As such, Experiment 4 examined the difference between participant’s forced ordering and non-forced ordering of locations on the Span Task and as a function of low or high parking factor scores. Overall, inter-factor correlations, their directionality, and correlations with the Span Task logically supported the factors. Individual differences in External Interference and Concern interacted with ordering Span Task terminal and primacy locations, respectively. Lower and higher-level memory process relationships likely exist.

Author

• Nuest, Brian Dale

Identifier

hdl:10057/371

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:soar.wichita.edu:10057/371