Kurgansky, Andrei V.

Whenever the reverse order of delayed execution of sequence of movements set by a visual template is required, the question arises as to how the sequence representation is stored in working memory (WM). One option is to first reverse the order of movements and then retain the result in WM. The other option is to retain the original order of elements and change it immediately before or during the sequence execution. In order to verify which of the two options takes place we conducted an experiment in which 14 adult (20—30 years old) subjects were asked to memorize the route of visual cursor moving along the invisible polygonal chains and after a given delay to reproduce the motion with a graphical tablet in either direct or reverse order. The analyses of latency and timing for the sequences produced in either direct or reverse order showed that the order reversal does not affect the latency but results in some increase of the time spent (pause) in the vertices of piecewise trajectories. It also shown that the order reversal effect neither spatial characteristics of the reproduced sequences nor the frequency of the erroneous reproduction. The reported results suggest that the reversal of the order of elements in a sequence of movements occurs during the sequence execution