Short-term transfer effects of Tetris on mental rotation: Review and registered report - A Bayesian approach.

The existence of transfer effects of video games on cognitive performance are controversially discussed in experimental psychology. Whereas recent meta-analyses suggest the absence of far transfer effects, empirical evidence regarding near transfer effects is more controversial. This conceptual replication investigated the short-term near transfer effect of playing Tetris on mental rotation abilities. The design of the conceptual replication was based on a comprehensive compilation of the methods used by previous literature on this topic and advanced in order to reach a high scientific state-of-the-art standard. We ran a high-powered conceptual replication study with 366 participants randomly assigned to either an experimental group playing Tetris or a control group playing Solitaire. Both groups completed three commonly used mental rotation tests in a pre- and a posttest session. Additionally, the experimental group played Tetris while the control group played Solitaire. Playing time was 10 hours in total within 4 weeks. Based on previous research, we hypothesized that this might generate a short-term transfer effect of Tetris on mental rotation. While participants showed a repeated testing effect for the mental rotation tests in both groups, we found evidence that Tetris does not produce a short-term transfer effect on mental rotation. Both gender and expected outcomes did not influence this effect. Our study suggests that playing Tetris does not improve mental rotation skills.

Processing spatial configurations in visuospatial working memory is influenced by shifts of overt visual attention.

When memorizing multiple objects, humans process them in relation to each other, proposing a configuration benefit. Shifts in overt visual attention through eye movements might influence the processing of spatial configurations. Whereas some research suggests that overt visual attention aids the processing of spatial representations, other research suggests a snapshot-like processing of spatial configurations, thus likely not relying on eye movements. In the first experiment, we focused on the comparison between an enforced fixation and a free view condition regarding configurational effects. Participants encoded objects' locations and were asked for changes at retrieval. One object was displaced in half of the trials and was either accompanied by a configuration or was displayed alone. In the second experiment, we expanded this idea by enforcing fixation during different task phases, namely encoding, maintenance and retrieval. We investigated if a fixed gaze during one specific phase drives the influence of eye movements when processing spatial configurations. We observed reliable configuration benefits for the free view conditions. Whereas a fixed gaze throughout the whole trial reduced the effect, enforced fixations during the task phases did not break the configuration benefit. Our findings suggest that whereas the processing of spatial configurations in memory is supported by the ability of performing shifts of overt visual attention, configurational processing does not rely on these shifts occurring throughout the task. Our results indicate a reciprocal relationship of visuospatial working memory and eye movements.

Do group ensemble statistics bias visual working memory for individual items? A registered replication of Brady and Alvarez (2011).

We performed a registered and precise replication of Experiment 1 reported in Brady and Alvarez (Psychological Science, 22, 384-392, 2011). The original experiment found that participants, who were asked to memorize the size of differently colored circles, reported the size of a probed circle biased toward the mean size of the same-colored group. Because our previous three unpublished replication attempts failed to find this effect, we powered the present registered replication using a Bayes Factor Design Analysis such that it provided compelling evidence regarding the presence or absence of the reported bias with a high probability, even under the assumption of smaller effect sizes. Thus, we recruited 663 participants through Amazon Mechanical Turk. We observed both a significant bias and strong Bayesian evidence in favor of the existence of a bias over the null hypothesis. Thus, our results can be considered a successful replication of the original findings, although with a considerably smaller effect size. We discuss the role of data quality when recruiting participants with Amazon Mechanical Turk. The present findings corroborate the idea that memory representations of individual objects are influenced by summary statistics.

(Re-)organisation of spatial configurations in visual working memory: The fate of objects rendered relevant or irrelevant by selective attention.

People maintain object locations not as independent absolute positions but based on inter-object relations in the form of a spatial configuration in visual working memory (VWM). Initial evidence suggests that spatial configurations can be reorganised during maintenance; however, this mechanism is not well understood. We report three experiments investigating this reorganisation process. First, we found that directing spatial attention with a retro cue triggers a reorganisation of spatial configurations during maintenance (Experiment 1). Second, we investigated the role of contextual objects rendered either relevant or irrelevant through the retro cue by manipulating the locations of the context at retrieval both within a partial display (Experiment 2a) and a whole display (Experiment 2b). Whereas the similar impairment of memory performance by changing the relevant and global context suggests a complete reorganisation of spatial configurations in VWM, this interpretation was challenged by the observation of impaired memory performance with changes of the irrelevant objects in a whole display that retains the relevant locations. Thus, we suggest that reorganisation should be considered to be the formation of a partial configuration based on the objects rendered relevant by the retro cue in addition to the originally encoded global configuration, with both configurations affecting memory performance.

Reorganization of spatial configurations in visual working memory: A matter of set size?

Humans process single objects in relation to other simultaneously maintained objects in visual working memory. This interdependence is called spatial configuration. Humans are able to reorganize global spatial configurations into relevant partial configurations. We conducted three experiments investigating the process underlying reorganization by manipulating memory set size and the presence of configurations at retrieval. Participants performed a location change detection task for a single object probed at retrieval. At the beginning of each trial, participants memorized the locations of all objects (set size: 4, 8, 12, or 16). During maintenance, a valid retro cue highlighted the side containing the object probed at retrieval, thus enabling participants to reorganize the memorized global spatial configuration to the partial cued configuration. At retrieval, the object probed was shown together with either all objects (complete configuration; Experiment 1a), the cued objects only (congruent configuration; all Experiments), the non-cued objects only (incongruent configuration, all Experiments) or alone (no configuration; Experiment 1b). We observed reorganization of spatial configurations as indicated by a superior location change detection performance with a congruent partial configuration than an incongruent partial configuration across all three experiments. We also observed an overall decrease in accuracy with increasing set size. Most importantly, however, we did not find evidence for a reliable impairment of reorganization with increasing set size. We discuss these findings with regard to the memory representation underlying spatial configurations.

Reorganization of spatial configurations in visual working memory.

Human beings have to constantly process multiple objects in visual working memory (VWM). Positional relations to other objects known as spatial configurations contribute significantly to the organization of information in VWM. The aim of our study was to clarify whether spatial configurations can be reorganized to a subset of objects during maintenance. Participants were shown an array of objects, and afterwards the objects disappeared. A valid cue was shown either during encoding or maintenance to highlight the side of the following probed object. Afterwards, the objects reappeared and participants were instructed to detect whether or not a particular object changed its location. We manipulated the configurations at retrieval regarding the number of objects, ranging from all objects to a single object. Our first and second experiment investigated reorganization for a number of six and 12 objects, respectively. In the third experiment, we used a retro cue only and manipulated eye movements (free view vs. enforced fixation). While showing that reorganization of spatial configurations during maintenance is possible in principle, we found some boundary conditions. There was no spatial configuration effect when participants had to fixate. Thus, eye movements are required for a configuration effect to occur.