The Presence of Visuospatial Bootstrapping in Sequences of Letters

Abstract

The phenomenon of visuospatial bootstrapping, refers to the binding between verbal and visuospatial short-term memory with long-term memory representations. It is argued that this pattern provides evidence towards models of working memory that incorporate an episodic buffer as opposed to original models of working memory. The current study was particularly concerned with investigating a visuospatial bootstrapping effect within sequences of letters across three display types: Typical, Random and Single. Twenty-five participants were recruited for the study, whereby participants took part in an immediate serial recall task of sequences of letters. The results from the experiment showed a significant effect for display type and serial position, therefore providing evidence of a bootstrapping effect within sequences of letters, which is a novel finding for bootstrapping research.