Retention and coding in motor short-term memory.

A modified short-term memory design was employed in an attempt to structurally interfere with the codes subserving distance and location information. Location information was codable in that no forgetting occurred over an unfilled retention interval, and there was some evidence that distance information was also codable. The interference effects supported a mechanism whereby locations are stored in a visual-kinesthetic code, with distance information being stored in a kinesthetic code having no visual consequences. Variable error was found to be the measure sensitive to both decay and interference in keeping with the Laabs (1973) model. It was proposed that the integrated code for location information storage is the mechanism accounting for the greater relative precision and codability of location cues with respect to distance cues.