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Dissociating cognitive and motor interference effects on kinesthetic short-term memory

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Abstract

In two experiments, we investigated how short-term memory of kinesthetically defined spatial locations suffers from either motor or cognitive distraction. In Exp. 1, 22 blindfolded participants moved a handle with their right hand towards a mechanical stop and back to the start and then reproduced the encoded stop position by a second movement. The retention interval was adjusted to approximately 0 and 8 s. In half of the trials participants had to provide a verbal judgment of the target distance after encoding (cognitive distractor). Analyses of constant and variable errors indicated that the verbal judgments interfered with the motor reproduction only, when the retention interval was long. In Exp. 2, 22 other participants performed the same task but instead of providing verbal distance estimations they performed an additional movement either with their right or left hand during the retention interval. Constant error was affected by the side of the interpolated movement (right vs. left hand) and by the delay interval. The results show that reproduction of kinesthetically encoded spatial locations is affected differently in long- and short-retention intervals by cognitive and motor interference. This suggests that reproduction behavior is based on distinct codes during immediate vs. delayed recall.

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Notes

  1. We report uncorrected degrees of freedom and corrected p values in the “Results” section.

  2. In similar experimental setups, we found that also the standard deviation, i.e. a measure not relativized to the mean amplitude, did not reflect the typically observed increase in variability with distance. In contrast, the pattern resembled the reported result, i.e. increasing distance was associated with a decrease in response variability (see Kirsch et al., 2008).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Experimental and Biological Psychology, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Gutenbergstrasse 18, 35032, Marburg, Germany

    Waldemar Kirsch, Erwin Hennighausen & Frank Rösler

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  1. Waldemar Kirsch
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  2. Erwin Hennighausen
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  3. Frank Rösler
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Correspondence to Waldemar Kirsch or Frank Rösler.

Additional information

This work was supported by the graduate school “neural representation and action control”, (Graduiertenkolleg 885) and grant Ro529/18-1, both provided by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

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Kirsch, W., Hennighausen, E. & Rösler, F. Dissociating cognitive and motor interference effects on kinesthetic short-term memory. Psychological Research 73, 380–389 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-008-0159-1

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