Abstract
Two experiments studied recall of objects and their locations in an intentional-incidental learning paradigm. When studying spatial information, the usual incidental condition is not truly incidental, because subjects often deliberately use locations to help organize objects for recall. Therefore, a true incidental task was devised in which neither objects nor locations were expected to be recalled and for which explicit encoding of locations was irrelevant. There was only a small loss in recall of objects or their locations in a true incidental condition. It was concluded that a great deal of location information is automatically coded into long-term memory storage in the sense that active processing is not required. The data were contrasted with incidental processing of other attributes, such as color. Although adults performed better than children, there were no age-related interactions, indicating similarity of functioning at all ages studied.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Acredelo, L. P., Pick, H. L., Jr., &Olsen, M. G. Environmental differentiation and familiarity as determinants of children’s memory for spatial location.Developmental Psychology. 1975,11, 495–501,
Bower, G. H. Analysis of a mnemonic device.American Scientist, 1970,58, 496–510.
Chapman, D. W. The statistics of the method of correct matchings.American Journal of Psychology, 1934,46, 287- 298.
Finkei D. L. A developmental comparison of the processing of two types of visual information.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1973,16, 250–266.
Light, L. L., &Berger, D. E. Memory for modality: Within-modality discrimination is not automatic.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1974,103, 854–860.
Light, L. L., Berger, D. E., &Bardales, M. Trade-off between memory for verbal items and their visual attributes.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 1975,104, 188–193.
Posner, M. I., &Snyder, C. R. R. Attention and cognitive control. In R. L. Solso (Ed.),Information processing and contrition: The Loyola symposium. Hillsdale, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1975.
Rothkopf, E. Z. Incidental memory for location of information in text.Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1971,10, 608–613.
Schulman, A. I. Recognition memory and the recall of spatial location.Memory & Cognition, 1973,1, 256–260.
Von Wright, J. M., Gebhard, P., &Karttunen, M. A developmental study of the recall of spatial location.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1975,20, 181–190.
Worden, P. E. The development of the category-recall function under three retrieval conditions.Child Development, 1974,45, 1054–1059.
Yates, F. A.The art of memory, Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 1966.
Zechmeister, E. B., McKillip, J., Pasko, S., &Bespalec, D. Visual memory for place on the page.Journal of General Psychology, 1975,92, 43–52.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This research was supported in part by NIMH Research Grants MH 24492 and MH 15828.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mandler, J.M., Seegmiller, D. & Day, J. On the coding of spatial information. Memory & Cognition 5, 10–16 (1977). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209185
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209185