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Abstract:
Abstract: It has been argued that the human cognitive system
is capable of using spatial indexes or oculomotor coordinates to
relieve working memory load (Ballard, Hayhoe, Pook & Rao, 1997)
track multiple moving items through occlusion (Scholl &
Pylyshyn, 1998) or link incompatible cognitive and sensorimotor
codes (Bridgeman and Huemer, 1998). Here we examine the use of such
spatial information in memory for semantic information. We present
five experiments where location is irrelevant to the task, and
participants' encoding of spatial information is measured
implicitly by their looking behavior during recall. Participants
were presented with pieces of auditory, semantic information as
events occurring in each of four regions of a computer screen. In
front of a blank grid, they were asked a question relating to one
of those facts. Under certain conditions, it was found that during
the question period participants made significantly more saccades
to the empty region of space where the semantic information had
been previously presented. Our findings are discussed in relation
to previous research on memory and spatial location, the dorsal and
ventral streams of the visual system, and the notion of a
cognitive-perceptual system using spatial indexes to exploit the
stability of the external world.
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