Strategies in visuospatial working memory for learning virtual shapes

Abstract

This study investigated visuospatial working memory (WM) strategies people use to remember unfamiliar randomly generated shapes in the context of an interactive computer-based visuospatial WM task. In a three-phase experiment with random shapes, participants (n = 94) first interactively determined if two equivalent shapes were rotated or reflected; second, memorized the shape; and third, determined if an imprint in a profile view of the ground was a rotated, reflected imprint of the shape, or an imprint not matching the original shape. Participants self-reported these strategies: Key feature, shape interaction, association/elaboration, holistic/perspective, divide and conquer, mental rotation/reflection and others. Participants reporting key features strategy were significantly more accurate on the computer-based visuospatial WM task. These results highlight the importance of strategy in visuospatial WM. © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.