The Visuospatial Sketchpad
The visuospatial sketchpad is the working-memory subsystem that holds and manipulates visual and spatial information — images, diagrams, shapes, spatial relationships, and mental layouts. Identified by Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch in 1974 as the visual counterpart to the phonological loop, it runs in parallel with the verbal subsystem under a central executive. In workshop design, it is the cognitive substrate underneath the "seeing" side of participant-driven dual coding: writing a concept in your own words on a page, sketching a process, or laying out a plan activates the visuospatial sketchpad.
Tagged
Related Terms
- Working Memory
- Working memory is the brain's real-time processing system, responsible for holding and manipulating new information as it's encountered. It has a hard capacity ceiling — approximately five to nine…
- The Phonological Loop
- The phonological loop is the working-memory subsystem that holds and manipulates verbal and auditory information — spoken words, heard words, inner speech, and sub-vocalized rehearsal. Identified by…
Mentioned In
- Dual Coding
Dual coding is the learning-science principle that information encoded through two channels simultaneously — verbal and visual — produces stronger and more durable memory than information encoded…
- Dual Coding
Dual coding is the learning-science principle that information encoded through two channels simultaneously — verbal and visual — produces stronger and more durable memory than information encoded…