| dc.description.abstract | Recent research has found that when to be remembered numbers are paired with additional
visuospatial information participants generally perform better. Reasons for this difference are
the binding of verbal and visuospatial memory with long-term memory representations which
leads to the creation of the so-called bootstrapping effect. Most of such this research has
suggested that this relationship is mainly a result of the episodic buffer binding the different
systems withing working memory. However, these experiments always used a set amount of
items that had to be remembered hence possibly allowing for an influence of practice on the
observed effect. So far, little attention has been given to experiments that utilise running
memory span by introducing lists of unknown length and how that possibly influences the
effect. In the current study, 46 participants were recruited to take part in a running memory
span task. Each participant was required to recall the last six numbers of a total of 27
sequences with unknown length per condition. Sequences were either presented at a short
presentation time of 0.5s or a long 2s per item. The results of the current study provided
further evidence for the bootstrapping effect with participants scoring higher in the typical
layout. Hence, running memory span tasks can effectively be used to investigate the
bootstrapping effect and possibly even provide better results as rehearsal of items is
impossible due to the unpredictable end of the list. The non-significant interaction between
layout and presentation time also supported the argument of an automatic bootstrapping
effect that requires minimal attention. | en |
