TY  - JOUR
A1  - Soemer, Alexander
A1  - Saito, Satoru
T1  - Domain-specific processing in short-term serial order memory
JF  - Journal of memory and language
N2  - Recent studies of short-term serial order memory have suggested that the maintenance of order information does not involve domain-specific processes. We carried out two dual task experiments aimed at resolving several ambiguities in those studies. In our experiments, encoding and response of one serial reconstruction task was embedded within encoding and response of a concurrent serial reconstruction task. Order demands in both tasks were independently varied so as to find revealing patterns of interference between the two tasks. In Experiment 1, participants were to maintain and reconstruct the order of a list of verbal materials, while maintaining a list of spatial materials or vice-versa. Increasing the order demands in the outer reconstruction task resulted in small or non reliable performance decrements in the embedded reconstruction task. Experiment 2 sought to compare these results against two same-domain baseline conditions (two verbal lists or two spatial lists). In all conditions, increasing order demands in the outer task resulted in small or non-reliable performance decrements in the embedded task. However, performance in the embedded tasks was generally lower in the same-domain baseline conditions than in the cross-domain conditions. We argue that the main effect of domain in Experiment 2 indicates the contribution of domain-specific processes to short-term serial order maintenance. In addition, we interpret the failure to find consistent cross-list interference irrespective of domain as indicating the involvement of grouping mechanisms in concurrently performed serial order tasks. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
KW  - Serial order memory
KW  - Verbal memory
KW  - Spatial memory
KW  - Domain specificity
KW  - Working memory
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2015.12.003
SN  - 0749-596X
SN  - 1096-0821
VL  - 88
SP  - 1
EP  - 17
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - San Diego
ER  -