ABSTRACT
The concept of a separate visual short-term store, functionally distinct from its verbal equivalent, has long formed part of attempts to cognitively model human working memory. Although Atkinson and Shiffrin’s seminal 1968 paper ‘Human memory: A proposed system and its control processes’ is most widely known for its description of an auditory-verbal-linguistic
buffer, the authors also acknowledged the probable existence of an additional visual buffer, but avoided any attempt to specify its nature due to a lack of relevant experimental evidence. In the early development of the multi-component model of working memory, Baddeley and Hitch also proposed that a separate visual memory system most probably existed in conjunction with a functionally distinct verbal rehearsal buffer, with both systems relying in part on the presence of a single common central processor (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). Again, however, there was insufficient empirical evidence to allow any detailed specification of the operation of this visual short-term memory.
