In order to explore the temporary representation of visual and spatial information, Adrian X. Ellis, Sergio Della Sala and Robert H. Logie (1995) published a paper in which they summed up all evidences for visuo-spatial working memory. Visual and spatial information about the environment are needed for planning interactions “and for predictions as to the outcome of external events and of our own actions”. Therefore it is somehow connected to the planning of movement and working memory. Indeed, there are studies based on dual task interference techniques showing that the control and/or production of movement is overlapping to some extent with the cognitive functions required for mental imaging task. Doing a movement task parallel to a mental imaging task decreases the performance of the mental imaging more as a comparable not-mental-imaging second task. That sounds all quite complicated. Lets just focus on the point that somehow planning movement and mental imaging are connected because “production of a movement to a target clearly requires some representation of where the target is in relation to the body or limb involved”. However, as the review paper of Ellis et al. points out: the visual-spatial representation does not have to be conscious. Unilateral spatial neglect is a neuropsychological condition in which a person fails to attend to the side opposite a brain lesion. Studies showed that people with the unilateral neglect fail to see differences between the picture of a chimeric animal (where front part of an animal is connected to a back part of a different animal… see example) and the picture of the same animal without any chimeric modulation, as long as the wrong “back” part is on the site they fail to attend to. In the example picture this means a person which neglect the left side will not be able to point out any difference between this picture and the picture of just a lying cat. However, if you ask the person which picture looks more like a fish, there is a large chance the person is showing to the chimeric picture. That shows that the visual-spatial representation does not have to be conscious in order to do a controlled (planned) movement like pointing to a certain picture. The conclusion of Ellis et al. is that “clearly the relationship between implicit processing, planning of action and the nature of the representation in working memory is an area that is ripe for further exploration.” Indeed, it seems like there was further exploration of this topic after this paper (in 1995). At least there was a book published about the visuo-spatial working memory in 2014 (Robert H. Logie, Psychology Press). So it seems like the visuo-spatial working memory theory still holds. "The Bailiwick of visuo-spatial working memory: evidence from unilateral spatial neglect"
Adrian X. Ellis, Sergio Della Sala and Robert H. Logie Cognitive Brain Research 3.2 (1996): 71-78.
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IdeaI love to increase my general science knowledge by reading papers from different fields of science. Here I share some of them. Archiv
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