Waiters: Strategies to Enhance Memory Capacity

TRISTÁN BEKINSCHTEIN; JUAN FELIPE CARDOZO; TERESA TORRALVA; MARÍA ROCA; FACUNDO MANES

Bilbao

Encuentro; Join Mid-Year Meeting; 2007

The International Neuropsychological Society, Federation of Spanish Societies of Neuropsychology, Spanish Neuropsychological Society, Spanis Psychiatry Society

Objecive: to study how typical Buenos Aires waiters (who have no need to make written notes) memorise all the orders and the respective clients, in particular to study their spatial working memory strategies in a real-life setting. Participants and methos: waiters´(N=9, >10 years of experience) spatial working memory was assessed while working, and were unaware of the experiment. The researcher, who performed as table coordinator and other seven participants were randomly arranged around the table, ready to make different, previously stated, orders. The assessment was achieved in two differente conditions. In the first condition the waiter was asked for eight different drinks and the customers remained seated in their original locations (OL) at the time of the delivery of the orders. The other condition consisted in asking for eiht different meals and changing their client´s location (CL) to new, previously established ones, before the waiter arrived to lediver the orders. Results: we found that the waiters use a bound (feature-loation) strategy since all buty one presented location errors. Conclusions: results were consistet with the strategy reported by the waiters. Perhaps this strategy is commonly used by people and it is necessary to develop (more reliable) test to demonstrate this hypothesis in “Ecologial” way.