A systematic examination and modeling of STM across modalities and domains: a step towards reconciling modularity and functional equivalence

序列顺序处理和短期信息保持是广泛认知活动的基础。这些活动不仅限于与语言有关，而且还包括空间领域。然而，大部分的研究工作都集中在短期记忆（STM）的口头信息。由于语言的序列性，对短时记忆的研究主要集中在序列顺序加工和列表学习范式上，如经典的序列回忆任务。然而，空间信息记忆的研究主要通过识别和变化检测范式，将其兴趣集中在对单个项目或一系列同时呈现的对象的短期保留上。在过去的二十年里，语言和空间之间的分离的证据已经积累起来，并导致了几乎普遍采用的模块化。事实上，短时记忆的研究在很大程度上受到模块性概念的推动，即认知被视为处理特定类型信息（言语和空间）和模态（听觉和视觉）的模块的功能。然而，一个新兴的证据挑战STM的模块化观点的准确性。事实上，当言语和空间STM任务仔细等同的过程要求方面，一些经典的现象与言语STM扩展到空间域。目前的研究计划将试图缩小STM的对立观点之间的差距，并平衡支持和反对模块化的证据。根据该建议的主要目标，实证工作分为三个主题：i）建立知觉组织与空间信息短时记忆之间的密切联系; ii）重新审视与所谓的视觉短时记忆（VSTM）相关的现象，并将概念测试扩展到序列记忆; iii）测试知觉-手势框架-STM的具身认知观点-解释空间STM现象的适用性。拟议中的研究计划将提供数据，应有助于调和明显矛盾的功能等效和模块化的研究结果，并提供证据的STM的重新解释。

Serial order processing and retention of information over the short term are at the basis of a wide range of cognitive activities. Those activities are not restrictively related to language but also cover the spatial domain. Nevertheless, most of the research work has focused on short-term memory (STM) for verbal information. Due to the sequential nature of language, research on verbal STM has been preoccupied with serial order processing and employed list learning paradigms such as the classical serial recall task. Research on memory for spatial information has, however, centred its interest on the short-term retention of a single item or an array of simultaneously presented objects mostly through recognition and change-detection paradigms. Evidence of dissociations between verbal and spatial has accumulated over the last two decades and led to the almost universal adoption of modularity. Indeed, the study of STM has been largely driven by the concept of modularity whereby cognition is viewed as the functioning of modules processing specific types of information (verbal and spatial) and modalities (auditory and visual). However, an emerging body of evidence challenges the veracity of the modular view of STM. Indeed, when verbal and spatial STM tasks are carefully equated in terms of process requirements, a number of phenomena classically associated with verbal STM are extended to the spatial domain. The present program of research will attempt to narrow the gap between opposing views of STM and balance the evidence for and against modularity. The empirical work is divided in three themes according to key objectives of the proposal: i) To establish the close link between perceptual organisation and STM for spatial information; ii) To revisit phenomena associated with the so-called visual short-term memory (VSTM) and extend the testing of concepts to serial memory; iii) To test the applicability of the perceptual-gestural framework - an embodied cognition view of STM - to account for spatial STM phenomena. The proposed program of research will provide data that should contribute to reconcile apparently contradictory sets of findings of functional equivalence and modularity, and provide evidence for a reinterpretation of STM.