In the present research, we investigated whether eyeblinks interfere with cognitive processing. In Experiment 1, the participants performed a partial-report iconic memory task in which a letter array was presented for 106 msec, followed 50, 150, or 750 msec later by a tone that cued recall of onerow of the array. At a cue delay of 50 msec between array offset and cue onset, letter report accura...

Iconic gestures are hand movements that represent shapes, objects and functions of a referent. When gesture is restricted, imagery decreases and speech dysfluencies (which are most pronounced when communicating spatial information) increase. Since gesture restriction adversely affects both imagery and the communication of spatial information, many theorists have argued that visuospatial working...

BACKGROUND Classic work on visual short-term memory (VSTM) suggests that people store a limited amount of items for subsequent report. However, when human observers are cued to shift attention to one item in VSTM during retention, it seems as if there is a much larger representation, which keeps additional items in a more fragile VSTM store. Thus far, it is not clear whether the capacity of thi...