# Spatial organisation in the human mind as a function of the distance between stimuli

## TL;DR

This study explores how the spatial layout of stimuli on a screen affects how people mentally organize information in working memory.

## Contribution

The study tests whether increasing the physical distance between stimuli enhances the SPoARC effect, a known spatial organization phenomenon in working memory.

## Key findings

- The SPoARC effect was observed in all three spatial conditions (central, narrow, wide).
- There was no significant difference in the magnitude of the SPoARC effect across the three conditions.
- The spatial layout of stimuli did not influence the strength of the spatial organization in working memory.

## Abstract

Studies investigating serial order in working memory have shown that participants from Western cultures are faster at responding to items presented at the beginning of a sequence using their left hand and faster at responding to items at the end with their right hand. This is known as the spatial positional association of response codes (SPoARC) effect. The SPoARC effect provides evidence that recently presented information is spatially organised in the cognitive system along a horizontal axis. This study investigated the flexibility of spatialisation by testing the effect that distance between items presented on a screen has on the magnitude of the SPoARC effect. It was hypothesised that by increasing the distance between items on a screen a larger SPoARC effect would be found. We used three conditions: central, narrow, and wide. In central, four random letters were presented sequentially at the centre of the screen, in narrow the letters were presented from left to right on the screen, wide was the same as narrow but the separation between the letters was larger. Participants consisted of 64 adults aged 18–55 years. Participants were presented with four random letters, followed by single probe letter; participants had to indicate, by pressing a key on a normal keyboard, if the probe had been in the sequence. We analysed the data with multilevel modelling. We found evidence for the SPoARC effect in all three conditions. But no evidence that the effect varied between conditions.