Spatial Paired Associates Learning Task (SPAL)
AKA: SPALT, PAL
Background
The Spatial Paired Associates Learning Task (S-PALT) is a computerized cognitive assessment used to measure episodic memory, visual memory, and new learning. It evaluates a person's ability to remember not just what an object is, but where it was located in space. The task usually presents blank boxes located in a grid or circle on the screen that get opened one-by-one. Some of the boxes reveal specific objects or geometric patterns. At the end of the sequence, each revealed object is presented in the center of the screen, and participants are asked to point to their specific box locations.
The S-PALT was originally developed by Barbara J. Sahakian and colleagues in 1988 at the University of Cambridge as a core component of the computerized Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB). Sahakian and her team designed the computerized version specifically to measure language-independent memory pathways linked to the hippocampus which is considered critical for 'binding' information from the visual cortex (visual info) and parietal cortex (spatial information) into one single episodic memory. Because the S-PALT requires binding an object identity ("what") to a specific spatial coordinate ("where"), it can serve as a direct indicator of hippocampal integrity. Sahakian et al demonstrated that patients with Alzheimer's, a disease associated with hippocampal damage, as opposed to patients with Parkinson's disease, disproportionately failed on the S-PALT task. An analog study with rats run by John C. Talpos and colleagues in 2009, established that the rodent touchscreen version replicated the same hippocampus-dependent memory functions that were established in humans.
The Millisecond S-PALT is based on the published procedure by Kevin M. Trewartha and colleagues from 2014 who used the S-PALT as a measure of explicit memory in their study on how memory decline impacts adaptive motor learning processes.
Task Procedure
The Millisecond S-PALT presents 6 boxes on screen, arranged in a circle around the screen's center. The boxes get randomly opened and either reveal an empty box or one of 10 possible shapes for 1 second before they are closed again and another box opens. The After all boxes have been opened, all uncovered shapes appear (in random order) one by one in the center of the screen and participants have to click on (or touch) the box that they think the presented shape was originally located in. No performance feedback is provided by default. The number of shapes hidden in the boxes depends on the current set size tested. Testing begins at set size 1 and can go up to 6. Participants get 10 attempts per set size before the test is terminated. Repeated set sizes repeat the same shape and shape locations but may open the boxes in a different random order.
What it Measures
The Spatial Paired Associates Learning Task (S-PALT) is a measure of episodic memory and new learning
Psychological Domains
- Episodic Memory: Ability to encode and recall a specific event in time and space
- Visuospatial Memory: Ability to process, retain, and manipulate visual imagery and spatial layouts within the mind's eye.
- Associative Binding: Memory sub-process that links two unrelated pieces of information into a unified mental representation
- Selective and Sustained Attention: Ability to maintain focus during the encoding (reveal) phase
Main Performance Metrics
- Proportion Correct Responses: Main indicator of processing speed and working memory function
- max Set Size: The maximum set size reached
- total Attempts: number of trials needed to get to the max Set Size
- SPALT Score: Score that combines max set size reached and number of trials needed to reach it
Psychiatric Conditions
Performance on the SPALT tends to be impaired in patients with the following psychiatric conditions:
- Alzheimer’s Disease (AD)
- Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)
- Schizophrenia
- Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
Participants are shown the contents of 6 boxes in the study phase and then identify which box each item belongs in the recall phase. The procedure is based on the publication by Trewartha et al (2014).
References
Search Google Scholar for peer-reviewed, published research using the Inquisit Spatial Paired Associates Learning Task (SPAL).
Sahakian, B. J., Morris, R. G., Evenden, J. L., Heald, A., Levy, R., Philpot, M., & Robbins, T. W. (1988). A comparative study of visuospatial memory and learning in Alzheimer-type dementia and Parkinson's disease. Brain, 111(3), 695–718.
Talpos, J. C., Winters, B. D., Dias, R., Saksida, L. M., & Bussey, T. J. (2009). A novel touchscreen-automated paired-associate learning (PAL) task sensitive to pharmacological manipulation of the hippocampus: a translational rodent model of cognitive impairments in neurodegenerative disease. Psychopharmacology, 205(1), 157–168.
Trewartha, K.M., Garcia, A., Wolpert, D.M., & Flanagan, J.R. (2014).Fast But Fleeting: Adaptive Motor Learning Processes Associated with Aging and Cognitive Decline.The Journal of Neuroscience, 34(40), 13411–13421.