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Visual working memory for semantically related objects in healthy adults

Abstract:

Introduction. Few studies have examined how manipulating the semantic relationship between objects impacts visual working memory accuracy or reaction time. Aim. To characterize how the semantic relatedness of visual objects impacts working memory accuracy and reaction time in healthy adults using a newly developed mobile-tablet cognitive task. Subjects and methods. A delayed matching to sample paradigm on the tablet task was studied in a sample of 76 communitydwelling adult participants from Spain and Colombia. The tablet task included 80 unique sets of either four or six semantically related or semantically unrelated objects. The accuracy and reaction time of the participants on the task were recorded for analysis. Results. When objects were semantically related, reaction time was greater in the six object sets relative to the four object sets. Age was positively associated with reaction time, but not accuracy across all four task conditions. Participants with fewer years of formal education than the sample median (16 years) exhibited worse response accuracy and slower reaction time on both the four and six semantically related conditions relative to participants with 16 or more years of formal education. Conclusions. Findings from this study suggest that when objects are semantically related (versus unrelated) and object load is increased, more processing time is needed to determine whether an object was or was not in the encoded set. The results also suggest that greater educational attainment -which likely relates with greater exposure to more technologies- is related with faster and more accurate responses on some task conditions.