VOLUME 107, NUMBER 2: 99-104 | MARCH 2002 AMERICAN JOURNAL ON MENTAL Mental Retardation and Memory for Spatial Locations Robert S. P. Jones, University of Wales, Bangor (North Wales, United Kingdom) Frances L. Vaughan, Colwyn Bay Hospital (North Wales) Mary Roberts University of Wales Abstract Although memory for spatial location has been frequently investigated with mentally re~ tarded populations, it is not clear that these individuals possess the same spatial memory skills as do their peers without mental retardation. We compared 30 persons with and 30 persons without mental retardation. Following either intentional or incidental learning, participants recalled and then relocated 16 objects on a matrix. The control group recalled more intentionally learned than incidentally learned material. The experimental group per- formed both tasks better after incidental learning than after intentional learning and scored as highly as the controls on incidental spatial memory. Results suggest that memory for spatial location is an automatic process and, to some extent at least, is not directly affected by the individual's level of intelligence. Several studies of memory for spatial location among persons with mental retardation have fol lowed from an assertion by Hasher and Zacks (1979) that the encoding of spatial location is an automatic process. They argued that this auto- ‘matic process operates by continuously encoding several specific attributes of the environment, in- cluding an object’s location. According to Hasher and Zacks (1979), automatic encoding requires neither awareness nor intention and cannot be willfully inhibited. They predicted that if such a process operates, the individual's level of intelli gence should not affect it, and a number of ex- periments have been designed to test this specific prediction (eg, Campione, Brown, & Ferrara, 1982) The results of these stuclies have been mixed Although a number of investigators have conclud- ed that memory for spatial location is indepen- dent of the degree of intellectual disability (e.g. © American Association on Mental Retardation de Dulaney & Ellis, 1991; Ellis, Katz, & Williams, 1987), others have reported reduced spatial mem- ‘ory capacity in persons with mental retardation (Dulaney, Raz, & Devine, 1996; Zucco, Tessari, & Soresi, 1995). Some researchers have concluded that if there are spatial memory differences be- tween persons with mental retardation and non- retarded comparison groups, then these differenc- es must reflect differences in levels of intelligence. Dulaney et al., for example, stated that such dif- ferences “are due to differences in level of intel- lectual impairment rather than their age or etiol- ogy” (p. 422). However, other research suggests that this re- lationship is not straightforward. For example, El- lis, Woodley-Zanthos, and Dulaney (1989) de- scribed one individual with Down syndrome and a measured IQ of 30 who recalled 100% of the 60 locations used in their study. Similarly, Katz and Ellis (1991) found that 62.5% of people with 997VOLUME 107, NUMBER 2: 99-104 | MARCH 2002 Memory for spatial locations moderate mental retardation (IQ range = 36 to 55) were as accurate in their ability to relocate pictures as were people with mild mental retar- dation and college students. Therefore, IQ may well be a less crucial determinant of spatial mem- ory performance than are other factors. In a study similar to that of Katz and Ellis (1991), Nigro and Roak (1987) reported results suggesting a preser- vation of spatial memory capacity in people with mental retardation. They compared 14 adults with mental retardation and 14 adults without mental retardation on their recall of object names and object locations. Although the nonretarded group performed significantly better than did the retard- ed group on verbal recall, there was no overall group difference in their spatial memory scores. This initial result is consistent with the hypothesis that intelligence is not the primary determinant of spatial memory performance in people with men- tal retardation. ‘As a further test of the encoding automaticity hypothesis, within the same study Nigro and Roak (1987) assessed the difference between the intentional and incidental leaning of the spatial locations. Neither intelligence nor intention to learn were expected to affect memory for the ob- ject locations. Although the Learning Condition X IQ Group interaction was nonsignificant, the participants with mental retardation learned names and locations better under incidental con- ditions than under intentional conditions. The opposite was true for the nonretarded groups. Fur- thermore, the recall of incidentally learned spatial locations was the most advantageous memory condition for the participants with mental retar- dation, to the extent that their mean incidental spatial memory score was higher than that of those without mental retardation. Nigro and Roak did not, however, comment on these aspects of their results, presumably because the correspond- ing interaction was nonsignificant. One possible interpretation of Nigro and Roak’s (1987) results is that the Memory Task Learning Condition x IQ Group interaction would have been significant if larger participant samples had been examined. Specifically, there may have been no real difference between scores of individuals with and those without mental re- tardation on the incidental spatial memory task, whereas there may have been significant group differences on the other conditions. Each Learn- ing Condition x 1Q Group cell contained only 7 participants. Unfortunately, it is not possible to 100 AMERICAN JOURNAL ON MENTAL RETARDATION RP. Jones et al carry out power analysis calculations on the basis of their data because Nigro and Roak did not re- port the associated variances. In order to test the hypothesis that the incidental learning of spatial memory provides adults who have mental retar- dation with a significantly greater opportunity for learning than is conferred by the intentional recall of spatial information, we replicated the Nigro and Roak procedure in the present study using substantially larger groups of adults with and with- ‘out mental retardation. We paid particular atten- tion to the differences between incidental and in tentional spatial learning by people with mental retardation. Method Participants Participants were 30 adults with mental retar- dation and 30 without mental retardation. The in- dividuals with mental retardation were all at least 18 years of age and attended a training center for adults with mental retardation. All persons attend- ing the center had IQs ranging between 50 and 70. Although specific measures of IQ were not taken, all participants were in this range. The par- ticipants without mental retardation were selected from among several martial arts (Karate) classes through informal contact with the third author. Both sets of participants were randomly assigned to one of the two instructional conditions. Due to a computer error, demographic details regard ing the precise age and gender of the participants are no longer available. The experimental and control groups were not matched for individual characteristics. Rather, the karate students com- prised a convenience sample of community-based individuals who did not have mental retardation and were approximately the same age and gender profile as the members of the experimental group. Participants were randomly assigned to the inten- tional and incidental learning conditions. Design and Materials The design corresponded to a 2 (mental re- tardation, no mental retardation) X 2 (intentional learning, incidental learning) factor design. Both factors were between-participants. Sixteen familiar objects (bandage, lipstick, of- fee, pack of cards, watch, rubber ball, coin, spool of thread, bar of soap, bottle of glue, teabag, pen, box of matches, egg cup, clothes pin, and a bunch © American Association on Mental RetardationYOUUME 107, NUMBER 2: 99-104 | MARCH 2002 ‘Memory for spatial locations of keys) were used as stimuli and arranged on a cardboard matrix of 36 locations. The locations, each 12.7-cm square, had 6 rows and 6 columns. No more than 4 locations within a row were used; 4 locations within each quadrant of the matrix were selected. Dots were placed in the center of each of the 16 location squares to designate the spots to which participants were to assign the ob- jects when they reconstructed the array. A stop- watch was employed to time the task intervals, and a cardboard box (approximately 7.62 x 7.62 X 7.62. cm) wrapped in brown paper was used in the incidental conditions. Procedure The participants were tested individually Those with mental retardation were tested in a private room of the day center they attended. The control participants were tested in a university of fice. The individual sat at a table opposite the ex- perimenter and was given verbal instructions ap- propriate for his or her learning condition. Partic- ipants in the intentional condition were instructed to remember the objects and their locations. Par- ticipants in the incidental condition were instruct- ed to consider each object on the matrix and de- cide which would fit into the box presented by the experimenter. We deliberately did not pretest to check whether they knew the names of the ob- jects prior to the experiment because we did not ‘want to encourage any cognitive rehearsal. Participants were allowed to study the matrix for 60 seconds before a screen was placed in front. of it to obscure their view. The experimenter then sat in a chair on the same side of the table as the participants and asked them to recall as many ob- jects as possible. This recall task lasted for a max- imum of 3 minutes. The recall procedure was the same for all participants. The experimenter retumed to the opposite side of the table and removed all the objects from the matrix before lowering the screen. The partic- ipant was asked to replace the objects in their orig: inal locations. Once an object had been placed on the matrix, it could not be moved to another position. Participants were given as much time as they wanted to complete this task and received no feedback or prompting. On completion, they were thanked for their participation, and they left the room. The experimenter recorded the positions in which the objects had been placed. © American Association on Mental Retardation AMERICAN JOURNAL. ON MENTAL RETARDATIC RP. Jones etal Results Each participant obtained a verbal recall score and a location memory score. These were the number of object names correctly recalled and the number of objects that the participant later placed in their original positions on the matrix. The scores were examined in a 2 X 2. 2 mixed anal- ysis of variance. The berween-subject factors were ‘group (retarded, nonretarded) and learning con- dition (incidental, intentional). The third withi subject factor was memory task (verbal recall, lo- cation recall) The analysis revealed a significant group main effect, Al, 96) = 17.7, p < 0001. Overall, the control group participants obtained a mean score of 11.03 (standard deviation [SD] = 3.2) items, and the participants with mental retardation ob- tained a mean score of 8.1 (SD = 3.6) items There was also a significant memory task main effect, Fl, 56) = 60.4, p < .0001. Overall, more items were correctly located (4 = 10.9, SD = 4.0) than were recalled by name (M = 8.3, SD = 2.8). There was no main effect of leaming condition. The MANOVA indicated a significant inter- action between group and leaming condition, Al, 56) = 88, p < .005. Table 1 represents this interaction. The participants with and those with- ‘out mental retardation who were tested under in- cidental learning conditions achieved similar mean scores (Ms = 9.4 [SD = 2.9] and 10.3 [SD = 3.7], respectively). However, there was a marked’ difference between the mean memory scores obtained by the individuals with and those without mental retardation who had been tested following intentional instructions (Ms = 6.8 [SD = 3.7] and 11.8 [SD = 2.5], respectively), p < 08. Post-hoc Tukey HSD comparisons of the data Table 1. Group Means and SDs by Task and Learning Condition Group/ Incidental Intentional Memory task Mean SD Mean SD Retarded Verbal recall 7.7 22 5934 Location 13° 46 Tinea Nonretarded Verbalrecall 93 22 101 16 Location W426 134 42 101‘VOLUME 107, NUMBER 2: 99-104 | MARCH 2002 ‘Memory for spatial locations sets confirmed that there was no significant dif ference between the memory performance of the retarded and nonretarded groups under incidental conditions, but the control group participants per- formed significantly better than did individuals with mental retardation under intentional condi- tions, p = .05, Further tests indicated that the par- ticipants with mental retardation performed sig- nificantly better under incidental conditions than under intentional conditions. In contrast, those without mental retardation performed slightly bet- ter under the intentional than under the inciden- tal conditions. This difference approached but did not attain significance. The means and SDs are presented in Table 1 ‘The interaction among the group, learning condition, and memory task factors was also sig- nificant, p < .05, The values presented in Table 1 indicate that participants with mental retarda- tion benefited from the incidental procedure on both the verbal recall and location tasks. Howev- er, the incidental advantage appeared to be greater for location memory than for verbal recall. Most notably, as can be seen in Table 1, the retarded group performed as well as the control group on the incidental location task Post-hoc comparisons support this interpre- tation. When the scores obtained under incidental and intentional conditions were compared using the Tukey HSD test, only the scores obtained by participants with mental retardation on the loca tion memory task were found to be significantly affected by the learning conditions, p = .05. This patter indicates that the incidental location memory task provided a significant specific ad- vantage for participants with mental retardation. Group differences on both measures of intention- al leaming (verbal and spatial) represented a large effect size, Cohen’s d = 1.27 and 1.29, respec tively. The incidental verbal recall group differ- ‘ence represented a medium effect size, Cohen’s d "69, and the incidental spatial location group difference represented less than a small effect size, Cohen's 05. rs Discussion In the present study we replicated the pattern observed in the results reported by Nigro and Roak (1987). People with mental retardation ob- tained significantly higher memory scores when fan object's location (rather than its name) was re- called. In the Nigro and Roak study, this effect 102 AMERICAN JOURNAL ON MENTAL RETARDATION RP. Jones etal. also appeared to be enhanced further when en- coding was incidental (rather than intentional) Our results reported here reproduced this effect, which, in the present larger study, was statistically significant. In our study patterns of recall varied between the two groups. The persons with mental retardation recalled more items following inciden- tal encoding, whereas those without mental retar- dation recalled more intentionally encoded infor- mation. All groups were better at recalling loca tions than object names. The most important re- sult reported here was that the persons with mental retardation recalled incidentally encoded ‘object locations as accurately as did members of the control group. In all other conditions, the per~ formance of the persons with mental retardation was poorer than that of the controls. A number of explanations for the advantage of incidental learning over intentional learning for persons with mental retardation are possible. First, this finding suggests that the coding of information regarding the spatial location of ob- jects is, indeed, automatic (Hasher & Zacks, 1979). {What remains to be explained, however, is why persons with mental retardation have performed Je well as persons without mental retardation in some studies (Dulaney & Ellis, 1991; Ellis et al., 1987) and failed to do so in others (Dulaney et al., 1996; Zucco et al., 1995). ‘The results of the present study may provide some explanations for these apparent contradictory findings. First, our results reflect a dynamic interaction between the encoding condition (intentional vs incidental) and material (verbal vs, spatial) factors involved in the study. In order to recall as much as the control participants did, the individuals ‘vith mental retardation required both incidental learning conditions and spatial materials. When only one of these factors was present (ie. in the recall of intentionally encoded locations and in- Cidentally encoded names), their performance was only marginally better than when intentionally tencoded object names were recalled. "A second possiblity is that the methodology used by Nigro and Roak (1987), and replicated in the present study, provided the persons with men- tal retardation with a systematic strategy to aid recall. In the intentional condition, participants attempted to remember the number and location. of objects on a matrix. In the incidental condi- tion, participants were asked to look at each object oon the matrix and determine whether it would fit into a small box. The requirement to decide © American Association on Mental RetardationYOUUME 107, NUMBER 2: 99-104 | MARCH 2002 Memory for spatial locations whether each object would fit into the box might have provided such a strategy. Because persons without mental retardation would probably use a systematic strategy without being prompted, the methodology allowed both groups to perform equally in the incidental condition ‘These results have several broad implications. First, they conflict with data indicating that per- sons with mental retardation have a specific spa- tial memory deficit (Dulaney et al., 1996; Zucco et al,, 1995). In contrast, memory for spatial lo- cation may be one area of relative preservation. Second, they provide further evidence that under specific conditions people with mental retardation are able to learn new material as well as their peers without mental retardation, which could have im- portant implications for education, training, and rehabilitation. In particular, the experience of suc- cess on learning tasks could have positive effects on self-esteem, confidence, and future learning ca- pacity. For example, a relatively high spatial memory capacity could be utilized in cognitive training techniques, where the individual is taught new in- formation based on leamed locations. It could also be utilized in the teaching of new practical and work skills that are specifically dependent upon spatial memory (e.g., positioning electronic components on a circuit board). It may also be possible to use spatial locations as cues for the retrieval of other verbal and less efficiently encod- ced information. However, if this apparently preserved capacity is to be utilized in rehabilitation or training meth- ‘ods, an obvious difficulty would be the need to censure that information was encoded incidentally rather than intentionally. This could be difficult in practice because individuals might quickly learn that apparently innocuous tasks were fol- lowed by recall demands. Under these conditions, intentional encoding might be unavoidable. Other issues to be resolved in this area in- clude the question of whether a relatively pre- served memory for spatial location would allow spatial information to be used as effective retrieval cues for other nonspatial information. This pro- posal would need to be tested empirically before any clinical interventions might follow, but it is at least possible that access to some part of an object's internal representation (j.., its location) could facilitate access to other less easily retrieved components (e.g,, the object's name). Additional research is needed to confirm the AMERICAN JOURNAL ON MENTAL RETARDATION RP, Jones et al findings of the present study (eg, it is possible that the lack of a strict matching procedure re- sulted in two samples of slightly differential char- acteristics), but overall these results support the suggestions of Hasher and Zacks (1979) that mem- cory for spatial location is an automatic process and, to some extent at least, is not directly affect- ed by the individual's level of intelligence. The results also suggest that under specific conditions persons with mental retardation are able to learn new material as well as their peers without mental retardation can. The results also suggest, however, that the automatic encoding of spatial informa- tion may only be observed under specific envi- ronmental conditions. We suggest that the failure to find evidence of automaticy in previous studies (e.g., Dulaney et al., 1996) may reflect the absence of these optimum conditions rather than the ab- sence of such automatic encoding. References Campione, J. C., Brown, A. L., & Ferrara, R.A. (1982). Mental retardation and intelligence. In R J. Steinberg (Ed.), Handbook of human in- telligence (pp. 392-490). Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press Dulaney, C. L., & Ellis, N. R. (1991). Long-term recognition memory for items and attributes by retarded and non-retarded persons. Jntll- gence, 15, 105-115. Dulaney, C. L., Raz, N., & Devine, C. (1996). Effortful and automatic processes associated with Down syndrome and nonspecific mental retardation. American Journal on Mental Retar dation, 100, 419-423. Ellis, N. R, Katz, E., & Williams, J. E. (1987). Developmental aspects of memory for spatial location. Journal of Experimental Child Psychot- ogy, 44, 401-412. Ellis, N. R., Woodley-Zanthos, P., & Dulaney, C. L. (1989). Memory for spatial location in chi dren, adults, and mentally retarded persons. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 93, 521-527. Hasher, L., & Zacks, R. T. (1979). Automatic and efforttul processes in memory. Journal of Ex- perimental Psychology: General, 108, 356-388. Katz, E.R, & Ellis, N. R. (1991). Memory for Spatial location in retarded and nonretarded persons. Journal of Mental Deficiency Research, 35, 209-220. Nigro, G. N., & Roak, R. M, (1987). Mentally re- 103,VOLUME 107, NUMBER 2: 99-104 | MARCH 2002 AMERICAN JOURNAL ON MENTAL RETARDATION ‘Memory for spatial locations tarded and nonretarded adults’ memory for spatial location. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 91, 392-397. Zucco, G. M., Tessari, A., & Sores, S. (1995). Re- membering spatial locations: Effects of ma- terial and intelligence. Perceptual and Motor Skis, 80, 499-503. Received 1/25/00, accepted 6/27/01. 104 RP. Jones et al. ‘The data for this study were collected by the third author. The first and second authors con- tributed equally to the preparation of this man- uscript and authorship order was decided ran- domly. Requests for reprints should be sent to Robert S. P. Jones, Clinical Psychology, School ‘of Psychology, University of Wales, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2DG, North Wales, United Kingdom. E-mail: r.sjones@bangor.ac.uk. © American Association on Mental Retardation