Verbal coding and the storage of form-position associations in visual-spatial short-term memory

Short-term memory for form-position associations was assessed using an object relocation task. Participants attempted to remember the positions of either three or five Japanese Kanji characters, presented on a computer monitor. Following a short blank interval, participants were presented with 2 alternative Kanji, only 1 of which was present in the initial stimulus, and the set of locations occupied in the initial stimulus. They attempted to select the correct item and relocate it back to its original position. The proportion of correct item selections showed effects of both articulatory suppression and memory load. In contrast, the conditional probability of location given a correct item selection showed an effect of load but no effect of suppression. These results are consistent with the proposal that access to visual memory is aided by verbal recoding, but that there is no verbal contribution to memory for the association between form and position.