Abstract
It is well established that rote rehearsal plays a key role in serial memory for lists of verbal items. Although a great deal of research has informed us about the nature of verbal rehearsal, much less attention has been devoted to rehearsal in serial memory for visual-spatial information. By using the dot task—a visual-spatial analogue of the classical verbal serial recall task—with delayed recall, performance and eyetracking data were recorded in order to establish whether visual-spatial rehearsal could be evidenced by eye movement. The use of eye movement as a form of rehearsal is detectable (Experiment 1), and it seems to contribute to serial memory performance over and above rehearsal based on shifts of spatial attention (Experiments 1 and 2).
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This research was supported by operating grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to S.T. and to J.S.-A. Also, this collaborative work received support from the Québec and New Brunswick governments through the Cooperation in Advanced Education and Research program.
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Tremblay, S., Saint-Aubin, J. & Jalbert, A. Rehearsal in serial memory for visual-spatial information: Evidence from eye movements. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 13, 452–457 (2006). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193869
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193869