Visual Short-Term Memory and Attention: An Investigation of Familiarity and Stroke Count in Chinese Characters

Using Chinese characters, we investigated how stroke count and frequency of use influence attention and short-term memory (STM) encoding in Mainland Chinese speakers. To isolate specific components of attention we employed the Theory of Visual Attention (TVA), which allowed estimates of STM capacity...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition memory, and cognition, 2021-02, Vol.47 (2), p.282-294
Main Authors: Dall, Jonas Olsen, Wang, Yong-ming, Cai, Xin-lu, Chan, Raymond C. K., Sørensen, Thomas Alrik
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alphabets
Attention
Chinese
Chinese languages
Cognitive Processes
Cognitive Processing Speed
College Students
Experience Level
Experimental psychology
Familiarity
Female
Foreign Countries
Human
Human Channel Capacity
Male
Memory
Prior Learning
Short Term Memory
Stroke
Studies
Threshold Determination
Visual Attention
Visual Perception
Visual Stimuli
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Summary:Using Chinese characters, we investigated how stroke count and frequency of use influence attention and short-term memory (STM) encoding in Mainland Chinese speakers. To isolate specific components of attention we employed the Theory of Visual Attention (TVA), which allowed estimates of STM capacity, processing speed, and the threshold of visual perception. An analysis of TVA parameters revealed that familiarity affects both the memory capacity and processing speed of objects, whereas the threshold for visual perception remained unaffected. Interestingly, our results also indicate that modulation of attention is driven solely by familiarity with the characters, independent of the actual physical aspect of Chinese characters. We propose that mental categories and prior knowledge play a vital role in the processing of information in attention, as well as in how this information is stored and represented in visual STM.
ISSN:0278-7393
1939-1285
DOI:10.1037/xlm0000950