Exploring the characteristics of the visuospatial Hebb repetition effect

Abstract

Using the dot task (see Jones, Farrand, Stuart, & Morris, 1995) - regarded as a good visuospatial analogue of the verbal serial recall task - we examined whether the Hebb repetition effect and its characteristics can be extended to visuospatial material. Classically, the Hebb effect has been associated with serial verbal memory: Repetition of a to-be-remembered sequence of verbal items every third trial markedly improves serial recall ofthat sequence. In the present study, Hebb effects were observed with visuospatial information, and a direct comparison between verbal and spatial sequence learning revealed that the Hebb repetition effect for visuospatial information shares similar characteristics with its verbal analogue. Our results cast some doubt regarding the parsimony of the view that the classical verbal Hebb effect is driven by a store specialized for phonological information and impose some further constraints on modeling serial memory and implicit sequence learning. Copyright 2006 Psychonomic Society, Inc.