Intrusion errors in visuospatial working memory performance

This study tested the hypothesis that failure in active visuospatial working memory tasks involves a difficulty in avoiding intrusions due to information that is already activated. Two experiments are described, in which participants were required to process several series of locations on a 4 x 4 matrix and then to produce only the final location of each series. Results revealed a higher number of errors due to already activated locations (intrusions) compared with errors due to new locations (inventions). Moreover, when participants were required to pay extra attention to some irrelevant (non-final) locations by tapping on the table, intrusion errors increased. Results are discussed in terms of current models of working memory functioning.