The influence of long-term memory on visuo-spatial sketchpad: A test of a new factor causing recency effects

Three immediate serial recall experiments, using articulatory suppression examined the influence of visual long-term memory on visuo-spatial sketchpad. In Experiments 1 and 2, serial recall rates of unfamiliar figures, familiar figures, and numbers were investigated. The results showed that the more visual long-term memory the stimuli evoked, the more salient recency effects and primacy effects occurred. Based on these results, the following process is hypothesized to be one of the factors causing recency effects. If the visual information of items inputted into visuo-spatial sketchpad is already in long-term memory, only their retrieval cues are formed and retained. Thus, other information is erased from visuo-spatial sketchpad, which makes more room, so that subsequent items are inputted into visuo-spatial sketchpad. In Experiment 3, reaction times of a visual secondary task during presentation were measured. The results indicated that there was more room in visuo-spatial sketchpad when primacy and recency effects occurred, which supported the hypothesis. Finally, the interaction of working memory and long-term memory is discussed.