What is it like to do a visuo-spatial working memory task: A qualitative phenomenological study of the visual span task.
Aleš Oblak, Oskar Dragan, Anka Slana Ozimič, Urban Kordeš, Nina Purg, Jurij Bon, Grega Repovš
Consciousness and cognition February 1, 2024 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2023.103628 via PubMed
Summary
Working memory is typically measured with psychological tasks focused on outcome reliability, but rarely on how participants experience these tasks. This study replicated protocols for the phenomenological investigation of working memory using a visual span task with 18 healthy participants aged 21 to 35. Working memory was characterized at three time scales: background feelings, strategies, and tactics. On the tactic level, transmodality—how one modality of lived experience transforms into another—was identified as the central phenomenological dynamic during task performance.
Study at a glance
| Design | phenomenological study |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 18 |
| Population | healthy participants aged 21 to 35 |
| Key finding | Working memory can be phenomenologically characterized at three time scales—background feelings, strategies, and tactics—with transmodality as the central dynamic at the tactic level. |
Abstract
Working memory is typically measured with specifically designed psychological tasks. When evaluating the validity of working memory tasks, we commonly focus on the reliability of the outcome measurements. Only rarely do we focus on how participants experience these tasks. Accounting for lived experience of working memory task may help us better understand variability in working memory performance and conscious experience in general. We replicated recently established protocols for the phenomenological investigation of working memory using the visual span task. We collected subjective reports from eighteen healthy participants (10 women) aged 21 to 35 years. We observed that working memory can be phenomenologically characterized at three different time scales: background feelings, strategies, and tactics. On the level of tactics, we identified transmodality (i.e., how one modality of lived experience can be transformed into another one) as the central phenomenological dynamic at play during working memory task performance.