Maintenance in visuo-spatial working memory

Two proposed factors affecting visual working memory maintenance were explored. By means of the dynamic visual noise technique (DVN, Quinn & McConnell, 1996), perceptual structural complexity, and dynamic movement of irrelevant visual information, have been shown to affect memory for subject-generated images, but not for visual inputs. Three experiments manipulated the level of perceptual complexitity (standard DVN vs. dynamic figures, and dynamic vs. static characteristics) of an interfering display, while performing a visual recognition short-term memory task employing novel polygons. Results replicated the lack of standard DVN effect on memory for visual inputs, but showed that an irrelevant visual figure, more structured than standard DVN, decreased performance. Polygon recognition was affected by a static irrelevant visual figure, but was significantly lower when it was dynamic. Interference based on perceptual factors, and spatial displacements of incoming inputs, are discussed within the context of visual working memory mechanisms and. architecture.