The influence of visual secondary tasks on prospective memory in healthy adults

Prospective Memory can be defined as “remembering to carry out intended actions at an appropriate point in the future” (McDaniels & Einstein, 2007). Prospective Memory tasks have been shown to be susceptible to interference with Working Memory tasks (Benuzzi, Basso & Nichelli, 2005), indicating Working Memory involvement in their execution. Following up on evidence of Phonological Loop involvement (Law, Logie & Pearson, 2006), this study aims to determine if the Working Memory involvement is restricted to verbal Working Memory, or if visuo-spatial memory content would demand resources of the visuo-spatial sketchpad (Baddeley & Logie, 1999). N=19 participants completed the Edinburgh Virtual Errands Task (EVET) with measures of Prospective Memory performance being collected, while being presented with either a visuo-spatial or nonsense Working Memory task, Brooks’ (1967) Matrix Path Test (MPT). Contrary to my original hypotheses, analysis showed no significant difference in performance change in EVET performance, as well as MPT performance between the visuo-spatial group and the nonsense group, although there was a trend to be observed in the data towards a larger impairment in spatial groups

The functional subdivision of the visual brain : Is there a real illusion effect on action? A multi-lab replication study

Acknowledgements We thank Brian Roberts and Mike Harris for responding to our questions regarding their paper; Zoltan Dienes for advice on Bayes factors; Denise Fischer, Melanie Römer, Ioana Stanciu, Aleksandra Romanczuk, Stefano Uccelli, Nuria Martos Sánchez, and Rosa María Beño Ruiz de la Sierra for help collecting data; Eva Viviani for managing data collection in Parma. We thank Maurizio Gentilucci for letting us use his lab, and the Centro Intradipartimentale Mente e Cervello (CIMeC), University of Trento, and especially Francesco Pavani for lending us his motion tracking equipment. We thank Rachel Foster for proofreading. KKK was supported by a Ph.D. scholarship as part of a grant to VHF within the International Graduate Research Training Group on Cross-Modal Interaction in Natural and Artificial Cognitive Systems (CINACS; DFG IKG-1247) and TS by a grant (DFG – SCHE 735/3-1); both from the German Research Council.Peer reviewedPostprin

The SNARC Effect in Chinese Numerals: Do Visual Properties of Characters and Hand Signs Influence Number Processing?

The SNARC effect refers to an association of numbers and spatial properties of responses that is commonly thought to be amodal and independent of stimulus notation. We tested for a horizontal SNARC effect using Arabic digits, simple-form Chinese characters and Chinese hand signs in participants from Mainland China. We found a horizontal SNARC effect in all notations. This is the first time that a horizontal SNARC effect has been demonstrated in Chinese characters and Chinese hand signs. We tested for the SNARC effect in two experiments (parity judgement and magnitude judgement). The parity judgement task yielded clear, consistent SNARC effects in all notations, whereas results were more mixed in magnitude judgement. Both Chinese characters and Chinese hand signs are represented non-symbolically for low numbers and symbolically for higher numbers, allowing us to contrast within the same notation the effects of heavily learned non-symbolic vs. symbolic representation on the processing of numbers. In addition to finding a horizontal SNARC effect, we also found a robust numerical distance effect in all notations. This is particularly interesting as it persisted when participants reported using purely visual features to solve the task, thereby suggesting that numbers were processed semantically even when the task could be solved without the semantic information

Left-handed and right-handed responses to each number in each notation, magnitude judgement.

<p><b>SNARC effect</b>: Right-handed responses slower than left-handed responses for small numbers, faster for large numbers. <b>Distance effect</b>: Increased responses times for numbers closer to the middle. Bottom right: Participants who reported using visual categorisation (per our questionnaire; plotted in grey) vs. those who did not. Note the slightly compressed y-axis in this plot. Error bars indicate within-subject SEMs for each number, pooled across each contrast of numbers [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0163897#pone.0163897.ref052" target="_blank">52</a>,<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0163897#pone.0163897.ref053" target="_blank">53</a>]. Horizontal dashed lines indicate grand means of RTs for each notation.</p

Regression coefficients of dRT over number and dRT over magnitude bins.

<p>Regression coefficients of dRT over number and dRT over magnitude bins.</p

Left-handed and right-handed responses to each number in each notation, parity judgement task.

<p><b>SNARC effect</b>: Right-handed responses slower than left-handed responses for small numbers, faster for large numbers. Error bars indicate within-subject SEMs for each number, pooled across each contrast of numbers [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0163897#pone.0163897.ref052" target="_blank">52</a>,<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0163897#pone.0163897.ref053" target="_blank">53</a>]. Horizontal dashed lines indicate grand means of RTs for each notation.</p

The stimuli used in our experiments.

<p>(a) Arabic digits, (b) simple-form Chinese characters, (c) Chinese hand signs as used in Chinese Sign Language. Stimuli in each column represent identical numbers. Note that the number 5 is omitted in all notations. This enabled us to use it as the standard for the magnitude judgement task. Hand signs images retrieved from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_number_gestures" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_number_gestures</a>, created by Wikipedia user Ningling, and used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.</p