Published Paper Details:

The study examined the slot and the complex resolution hypothesis relating to visual short-term memory. Thirty college students participated in the study. They performed typing thirty animal names in four conditions. In Blind Condition, stickers covered all the alphabets on the key board. In Control Condition, participants performed normal typing. In the Minimal Change Condition, places of two alphabets were interchanged to increase the complexity of resolution. In Maximal Change Condition, places of four alphabets were interchanged to further increase the complexity of resolution. The error rate in the Blind Condition was 92.81%, which pointed out that performance on the key board is a function of visual short-term memory rather than habit. The error rate in the Control Condition was only 0.46% to point out that participants could simultaneously attend to 26 alphabets in the visual field without regard to any slot. In the Minimal Change Condition, the error rate was much higher than the Control Condition, which supported the complex resolution hypothesis that increased complexity of the visual field reduces the performance in visual short-term memory. Further, a spread of effect is observed in the performance as the error rate not only increased in the changed part but also in the unchanged part. In the Maximal Change Condition, the error rate was very high to suggest that increased complexity of the visual field causes tangential increase in the error rate. The findings of the study disproved the slot hypothesis and proved the complex resolution hypothesis.