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Effects of pointing on the recall of simultaneous and sequential visuospatial arrays: a role for retrieval strategies?

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Abstract

The present four experiments examined the effects of pointing movements towards the target locations in a modified free recall task. Three factors were manipulated: the order of the move/no-move trials (blocked or mixed), the type of stimuli presentation (simultaneous or sequential) and the size of the to-be-recalled configurations (7–9 and 5–7 items). Results showed that pointing significantly decreased visuospatial performance both with a mixed and a blocked design. However, in the blocked condition the interference effect of pointing was load-dependent (being inversely related to array size) and occurred only when participants pointed to all stimuli in the first block. Post hoc analyses supported the conclusion that pointing movements interfered with the on-line development of appropriate retrieval strategies, like parsing the configurations into smaller chunks or creating global visual images.

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Acknowledgments

We are indebted with Michael Dodd for suggesting a number of insightful analyses and with an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript. The author would also like to thank Giorgia Ponsi for her help in collecting data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Rome “Sapienza”, Via dei Marsi 78, 00185, Rome, Italy

    Clelia Rossi-Arnaud

  2. Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, University of Rome “Sapienza”, Rome, Italy

    Pietro Spataro & Emiddia Longobardi

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  1. Clelia Rossi-Arnaud
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  2. Pietro Spataro
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  3. Emiddia Longobardi
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Correspondence to Clelia Rossi-Arnaud.

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Rossi-Arnaud, C., Spataro, P. & Longobardi, E. Effects of pointing on the recall of simultaneous and sequential visuospatial arrays: a role for retrieval strategies?. Psychological Research 76, 699–712 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-011-0394-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-011-0394-8

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