An influential theory in this field is “scanpath theory” (Norton & Stark, 1971), which proposed that reinstatement of the sequence of eye-movements made during encoding of a visual stimulus plays a causal role in its subsequent successful recognition. A hard interpretation of this theory entails that recapitulation of eye-movements made during encoding of visual scenes facilitates successful recall. However, a recent study Wortmannin in vitro by Martarelli and Mast (2013) manipulated eye-position during pictorial recall and found that there was no increase in memory accuracy when participants looked at areas where stimuli had previously appeared, in comparison to when

they looked at non-corresponding areas of screen. Similarly, Foulsham and Kingstone (2013) have recently reported a series of experiments in which participants’ fixations were constrained during click here encoding and recognition of images in order to manipulate scanpath similarity. Although scanpath similarity was a predictor of recognition accuracy, there was no recognition advantage when participants re-viewed their own fixations of a

scene versus someone else’s, or for retaining serial order of fixations between encoding and recognition. Foulsham and Kingston conclude that while congruency in eye-movements between encoding and retrieval is beneficial for scene recognition, there is no evidence to suggest recapitulation of the exact scanpath at encoding is necessary for accurate recall. Our own results are broadly in line with these recent findings, as there is no evidence from Experiment 3 in the present study that the ability to engage in saccade preparation to memorized locations

is necessary for their accurate recall. Thus, while the rehearsal of directly salient locations in the oculomotor system allows for optimal spatial memory at recall, we regard this as a contributing mnemonic mechanism that operates in conjunction with visually-based strategies such as mental path construction or visual imagery (Parmentier et al., 2005 and Rudkin et al., 2007). Critically, we have previously shown Staurosporine that eye-abduction only reduces, rather than abolishes, spatial memory even when applied across all encoding, maintenance, and retrieval stages of a trial (Ball et al., 2013). Therefore, clearly the involvement of oculomotor encoding and rehearsal enhances spatial memory for a sequence of visually-salient locations rather than critically enables it. However, this position is not dissimilar to that observed when articulatory suppression is used to prevent subvocal rehearsal of words and digits during verbal working memory ( Baddeley et al., 1975 and Murray, 1967), where verbal memory span is significantly reduced but not abolished ( Baddeley, 2003). Both the findings of Ball et al.