The CODING training module within the NeuroMite program trains monitoring processes and spatial coding in visuospatial working memory.
Scene and Task
Imagine you're observing vehicles driving onto a bridge (memorizing phase). While driving over the bridge the vehicles disappear from your view (rehearsal phase). When they reappear at the end of the bridge, one of the vehicles may have changed its position in the spatial arrangement. This vehicle must be identified (recall phase) – this involves comparing the new arrangement of the vehicles as they leave the bridge with the stored layout of their previous arrangement and scanning the new arrangement for differences.
Theory
Both monitoring and coding are base mechanisms of working memory. They are used for (metacognitive) control and coordination of cognitive processes and form the basis for more complex cognitive activities. Monitoring in working memory involves the controlled supervision of storage processes and stored representations. Storage in spatial working memory requires the coding of incoming information according to its spatial features: the location at which the stimuli were perceived and/or their spatial arrangement is stored. Spatial coding links the individual items to representations (binding) and gives them a structure. There is no “pure” representation of a visually perceived stimulus; each stimulus also has a spatial “code”.
Difficulty Structure
CODING has 21 difficulty levels. At the different difficulty levels different storage and retrieval strategies are required, ranging from the identification of errors to reconstruction of the original sequence and the correction of errors. The demands on monitoring processes increase throughout the program.