Because people with damage to their hippocampus are sometimes impaired at remembering spatial information even over extremely short periods of time, it has been thought that the hippocampus is crucial for spatial information irrespective of whether the task is a working memory or a long-term memory task. This is in contrast to other types of information. In general, the hippocampus (and related structures in the mediotemporal lobe) is assumed to be involved in long-term memory, not working memory.
However, a new study involving four patients with damage to their mediotemporal lobes, has found that they were perfectly capable of remembering for one second the relative positions of three or fewer objects on a table — but incapable of remembering more. That is, as soon as the limits of working memory were reached, their performance collapsed. It appears, therefore, that there is, indeed, a fundamental distinction between working memory and long-term memory across the board, including the area of spatial information and spatial-objection relations.
The findings also underscore how little working memory is really capable of on its own (although absolutely vital for what it does!) — in real life, long-term memory and working memory work in tandem.
Reference:
[1920]
(2010). Intact Working Memory for Relational Information after Medial Temporal Lobe Damage.
J. Neurosci.. 30(41), 13624 - 13629.
