
In addition, Gerton, Brown, Meyer-Lindenberg, Kohn, and Holt ( 2004) used PET to observe greater bilateral activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during backward, relative to forward, digit recall. 201–202), with this often attributed to the involvement of executive control (e.g., Reynolds, 1997). Backward digit recall has also been found to be more sensitive to the effects of aging and brain dysfunction than forward digit recall (The Psychological Corporation, 2002, pp. Consistent with this suggestion, studies have revealed that backward recall loads onto the same factor as working memory measures such as counting span and listening span, whereas forward recall loads onto to a separable short-term memory factor (e.g., Alloway et al., 2006 Alloway, Gathercole, Willis & Adams, 2004 Gathercole, Pickering, Ambridge & Wearing, 2004). However, backward recall is also considered to require an attention-demanding transformation of the digit sequence, thus classifying this task as a complex span measure of working memory (e.g., Alloway, Gathercole & Pickering, 2006 The Psychological Corporation, 2002, p. According to this view, both forward and backward recall employ short-term phonological storage (i.e., short-term memory). One dominant view explains the differences in terms of attentional demands. Several approaches have been taken to account for differences between forward and backward recall. Evidence suggests that the effects are either absent or greatly attenuated when participants are asked to recall items in reverse order (e.g., Bireta et al., 2010 Madigan, 1971 Tehan & Mills, 2007). Recall direction also interacts with the prevalence of traditional short-term memory effects, including those of word length, irrelevant speech, phonological similarity, and concurrent articulation (e.g., Bireta et al., 2010). Studies have shown both primacy (advantage for early list items) and recency (advantage for late list items) effects for forward recall but minimal primacy and steeper recency for backward recall (e.g., Bireta, Fry, Jalbert, Neath, Suprenant, Tehan & Tolan, 2010 Li & Lewandowsky, 1995). Direction of recall is known to be an important determinant of performance, with participants typically achieving higher scores when recalling items in their original (forward) order, relative to reverse or backward order (e.g., Li & Lewandowsky, 1995 St Clair-Thompson, 2010 but see Anderson, Bothell, Lebiere & Matessa, 1998).
DIGIT SPAN TEST BACKWARD INTERPRETATION SERIAL
In immediate serial recall, participants are presented with series of stimuli and are asked to recall them. The findings are discussed in terms of both theoretical and practical implications. These results were replicated in Experiment 5, in which the same list length was used for forward and backward recall tasks. However, in Experiment 4, it was presented during the recall phase, and the results provided evidence of a role for visual imagery in backward digit recall. In Experiment 3, DVN was presented during encoding of information to be remembered and had no effect upon performance. Experiments 3 and 4 then further investigated the role of visual processes in forward and backward recall using dynamic visual noise (DVN). Experiment 2 shifted concurrent load to the recall phase instead and, in this case, revealed a larger effect of both tasks on backward recall, relative to forwards recall, suggesting that backward recall may draw on additional resources during the recall phase and that these resources are visuospatial in nature. The concurrent tasks did not differentially disrupt performance on backward digit recall, relative to forward digit recall. In the first, participants completed visuospatial 0-back and 2-back tasks during the encoding of information to be remembered. Five experiments therefore investigated the role of executive-attentional and visuospatial resources in both forward and backward digit recall. Some researchers consider it to differ from forward digit recall due to the involvement of executive control, while others suggest that backward recall involves visuospatial resources. There is some debate surrounding the cognitive resources underlying backward digit recall.
