Examining the effect of suppression strategies on visual working memory

• Main Author: Chng, Vicki Wei Qi
• Other Authors: Chen Shen-Hsing Annabel
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/66995
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The present study sought to examine, through the use of the suppression tasks, which type of rehearsal strategies are used in visual working memory tasks. This was measured using the suppression strategies by investigating how they will affect accuracy and response time. It was assumed that through the results obtained on which strategy had a stronger effect on the two measures, it would be able to determine which rehearsal type had a bigger contribution in visual working memory. Participants were given abstract patterns to remember, and in between the target and the probe, a decision type suppression task was administered. This was compared with the task without the suppression. The results showed that accuracy was not affected by suppression, however, for response time when suppression interacted with load, response time increased. This effect was more pronounced for the articulatory control suppression, supporting the argument that this type of rehearsal is utilised in visual working memory.