visuospatial sketchpad
in the model of working memory proposed in 1974 by British cognitive psychologists Alan D. Baddeley (1934– ) and Graham J. Hitch (1946– ), a component that briefly holds and manipulates information about the appearance of objects and their location in space. For example, if one tried to determine which of two countries is larger or to rate their proximity to one another, this would involve mentally picturing and comparing both countries within the visuospatial sketchpad. As with the analogous phonological loop for sound, the visuospatial sketchpad is divided into two parts: the visual cache, specializing in information about form, color, and other aspects of visual identity, and the inner scribe, specializing in information about spatial location and movement representation and planning. Although not as extensively researched as the phonological loop, the idea of the sketchpad and its
conceptualization as a multidimensional structure is increasingly supported by neuropsychological and functional imaging evidence in addition to experimental findings. Other components of the Baddeley and Hitch working memory model include the central executive and the more recently introduced episodic buffer.