Visual recognition of equivalent tactile-kinesthetic and verbal information in short-term memory

Short-term retention of equivalent tactile-kinesthetic and verbal information was compared, as well as subjects' ability to construct, and visually recognize information. Sixty undergraduate subjects participated, 30 in each of two groups. The first group received information through the fine movements of the subject's right index finger, whereas the second group was presented exactly the same information verbally coded. Both groups had to recognize visually each of 10 mentally constructed patterns, one at a time, depicted as drawings of a target and four distractors. Although both groups performed above chance level, there was a significant difference in the total number of correct recognitions, favoring the verbal one. It is concluded that: the transformation to a visual code is easier for the verbal system than for the kinesthetic one, perhaps because experience in coding visual information from verbal descriptions is greater. If we want to make meaningful comparisons between motor and verbal short-term memory, it is desirable to use tasks as similar as possible for both conditions. The present work suggests one way to achieve the above.