How do we store spatial working memories?

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Mobile digital technologies are ubiquitous in modern society. Theyhave revolutionised the way we live our lives, often in positive ways.However, a common theme in the public discourse surroundingdigital technology is a fear that these technologies are causingprofound changes to fundamental cognitive processes such asattention and memory. The idea that digital technology affectsmemory is widely held but is unfortunately very hard to test becausethe nature of memory, and in particular 'working memory' (theability to store and manipulate information), remains hotly disputed.One view is that there are a fixed number of 3-4 slots, and each slotcan store 1 item, like letters in a pigeonhole. The alternative view isthat working memory is a resource, and that this resource is flexiblyallocated to each item. Items allocated greater resources are storedwith higher fidelity, but as the number of items increases, theresource allocated to each item must be reduced. Resource modelsof memory have been successfully applied to visual memory, butthey have not been tested using spatial memory. This is importantbecause spatial memory is central to many cognitive processes, suchas navigation and spatial reasoning, that have been 'offloaded' ontomobile devices. The goal of this project is therefore to betterunderstand of the nature of memory by testing the validity of theresource model of spatial working memory. This understanding is anessential step towards informing wider debates about the impact ofdigital technology on the human condition.