The Impact of Visual Search Task on Working Memory Retrieval Through Frontal Delta-Theta Oscillation

Visual search is an important component of many real world tasks such as industrial inspection and driving. Several studies have shown that age has an impact on visual search performance. In general older people demonstrate poorer performance on such tasks as compared to younger people. However, there is controversy regarding the source of the age-performance effect. The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between component abilities and visual search performance, in order to identify the locus of age-related performance differences. Six abilities including reaction time, working memory, selective attention and spatial localization were identified as important components of visual search performance. Thirty-two subjects ranging in age from 18 - 84 years, categorized in three different age groups (young, middle, and older) participated in the study. Their component abilities were measured and they performed a visual search task. The visual search task varied in complexity in terms of type of targets detected. Significant relationships were found between some of the component skills and search performance. Significant age effects were also observed. A model was developed using hierarchical multiple linear regression to explain the variance in search performance. Results indicated that reaction time, selective attention, and age were important predictors of search performance with reaction time and selective attention accounting for most of the variance.

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Pupil Size as a Measure of Working Memory Load During a Complex Visual Search Task

Journal of Vision ◽

10.1167/13.9.160 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 13 (9) ◽

pp. 160-160 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

N. Attar ◽

M. Schneps ◽

M. Pomplun

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Visual Search ◽

Pupil Size ◽

Search Task ◽

Visual Search Task ◽

Memory Load ◽

Working Memory Load

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Bottom-up perceptual salience and top-down retro-cues concurrently determine state in visual working memory

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology ◽

10.1177/1747021820966264 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 174702182096626

Author(s):

Lingxia Fan ◽

Lin Zhang ◽

Liuting Diao ◽

Mengsi Xu ◽

Ruiyang Chen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Visual Search ◽

Visual Working Memory ◽

Search Task ◽

Visual Search Task ◽

Salient Feature ◽

Active State ◽

Top Down ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Perceptual Salience

Recent studies have demonstrated that in visual working memory (VWM), only items in an active state can guide attention. Further evidence has revealed that items with higher perceptual salience or items prioritised by a valid retro-cue in VWM tend to be in an active state. However, it is unclear which factor (perceptual salience or retro-cues) is more important for influencing the item state in VWM or whether the factors can act concurrently. Experiment 1 examined the role of perceptual salience by asking participants to hold two features with relatively different perceptual salience (colour vs. shape) in VWM while completing a visual search task. Guidance effects were found when either colour or both colour and shape in VWM matched one of the search distractors but not when shape matched. This demonstrated that the more salient feature in VWM can actively guide attention, while the less salient feature cannot. However, when shape in VWM was cued to be more relevant (prioritised) in Experiment 2, we found guidance effects in both colour-match and shape-match conditions. That is, both more salient but non-cued colour and less salient but cued shape could be active in VWM, such that attentional selection was affected by the matching colour or shape in the visual search task. This suggests that bottom-up perceptual salience and top-down retro-cues can jointly determine the active state in VWM.

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Concurrent Guidance of Attention by Multiple Working Memory Items: Behavioral and Computational Evidence

10.1101/629378 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Cherie Zhou ◽

Monicque M. Lorist ◽

Sebastiaan Mathôt

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Visual Search ◽

Visual Working Memory ◽

Search Task ◽

Visual Search Task ◽

Response Times ◽

Behavioral Data ◽

Drift Diffusion ◽

Single Item ◽

Multiple Item

AbstractDuring visual search, task-relevant representations in visual working memory (VWM), known as attentional templates, are assumed to guide attention. A current debate concerns whether only one (Single-Item-Template hypothesis, or SIT) or multiple (Multiple-Item-Template hypothesis, or MIT) items can serve as attentional templates simultaneously. The current study was designed to test these two hypotheses. Participants memorized two colors, prior to a visual-search task in which the target and the distractor could match or not match the colors held in VWM. Robust attentional guidance was observed when one of the memory colors was presented as the target (reduced response times [RTs] on target-match trials) or the distractor (increased RTs on distractor-match trials). We constructed two drift-diffusion models that implemented the MIT and SIT hypotheses, which are similar in their predictions about overall RTs, but differ in their predictions about RTs on individual trials. Critically, simulated RT distributions and error rates revealed a better match of the MIT hypothesis to the observed data than the SIT hypothesis. Taken together, our findings provide behavioral and computational evidence for the concurrent guidance of attention by multiple items in VWM.Significance statementTheories differ in how many items within visual working memory can guide attention at the same time. This question is difficult to address, because multiple- and single-item-template theories make very similar predictions about average response times. Here we use drift-diffusion modeling in addition to behavioral data, to model response times at an individual level. Crucially, we find that our model of the multiple-item-template theory predicts human behavior much better than our model of the single-item-template theory; that is, modeling of behavioral data provides compelling evidence for multiple attentional templates that are simultaneously active.

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Can you have multiple attentional templates? Large-scale replications of Van Moorselaar, Theeuwes and Olivers (2014) and Hollingworth and Beck (2016)

10.1101/474932 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Marcella Frătescu ◽

Dirk Van Moorselaar ◽

Sebastiaan Mathôt

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Visual Search ◽

Boundary Conditions ◽

Visual Working Memory ◽

Large Scale ◽

Search Task ◽

Visual Search Task ◽

Multiple State ◽

Bias Attention ◽

Larger Sample

AbstractStimuli that resemble the content of visual working memory (VWM) capture attention. However, theories disagree on how many VWM items can bias attention simultaneously. The multiple-state account posits a distinction between template and accessory VWM items, such that only a single template item biases attention. In contrast, homogenous-state accounts posit that all VWM items bias attention. Recently, Van Moorselaar et al. (2014) and Hollingworth and Beck (2016) tested these accounts, but obtained seemingly contradictory results. Van Moorselaar et al. (2014) found that a distractor in a visual-search task captured attention more when it matched the content of VWM (memory-driven capture). Crucially, memory-driven capture disappeared when more than one item was held in VWM, in line with the multiple-state account. In contrast, Hollingworth and Beck (2016) found memory-driven capture even when multiple items were kept in VWM, in line with a homogenous-state account. Considering these mixed results, we replicated both studies with a larger sample, and found that all key results are reliable. It is unclear to what extent these divergent results are due to paradigm differences between the studies. We conclude that is crucial to our understanding of VWM to determine the boundary conditions under which memory-driven capture occurs.

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The Effect of Using Different Distractor Sets in Visual Search with Spiders and Snakes on Spider-Sensitive and Nonfearful Participants

Swiss Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1024/1421-0185/a000111 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 72 (4) ◽

pp. 171-179 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Anna Bjärtå ◽

Anders Flykt ◽

Örjan Sundin

Keyword(s):

Visual Search ◽

Search Task ◽

Visual Search Task ◽

Behavioral Responses ◽

The Impact

In two visual search experiments, we investigated the impact of distractor sets on fear-relevant stimuli by comparing a search set with spiders, snakes, flowers, and mushrooms to one with spiders, snakes, rabbits, and turtles. We found speeded responses to spider and snake targets when flowers and mushrooms, but not when rabbits and turtles served as distractors. In Experiment 2, we compared spider-sensitive to nonfearful participants. Spider-sensitive participants responded faster than nonfearful participants to spider targets when we used flowers and mushrooms as distractors, but not when we used rabbit and turtle distractors. These results indicate that behavioral responses to the visual search task not only depend on the individual’s relationship to the stimuli included in the search set, but also on the context in which the feared or fear-relevant objects are presented.

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Foggy windows: Pupillary responses during task preparation

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology ◽

10.1177/1747021817740856 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 71 (10) ◽

pp. 2235-2248 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Alexandra Trani ◽

Paul Verhaeghen

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Visual Search ◽

Search Task ◽

Visual Search Task ◽

Memory Task ◽

Pupil Dilation ◽

Attentional Resources ◽

Task Preparation ◽

Pupillary Responses ◽

Post Trial

We investigated pupil dilation in 96 subjects during task preparation and during a post-trial interval in a visual search task and an auditory working memory task. Completely informative difficulty cues (easy, medium, or hard) were presented right before task preparation to examine whether pupil dilation indicated advance mobilisation of attentional resources; functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have argued for the existence of such task preparation, and the literature shows that pupil dilation tracks attentional effort during task performance. We found, however, little evidence for such task preparation. In the working memory task, pupil size was identical across cues, and although pupil dilation in the visual search task tracked the cue, pupil dilation predicted subsequent performance in neither task. Pupil dilation patterns in the post-trial interval were more consistent with an effect of emotional reactivity. Our findings suggest that the mobilisation of attentional resources in the service of the task does not occur during the preparatory interval, but is delayed until the task itself is initiated.

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Working memory implements distinct maintenance mechanisms depending on task goals

10.1101/162537 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Johannes J. Fahrenfort ◽

Jonathan Van Leeuwen ◽

Joshua J. Foster ◽

Edward Awh ◽

Christian N.L. Olivers

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Visual Search ◽

Search Task ◽

Visual Search Task ◽

Recall Task ◽

Neural Mechanisms ◽

The Other ◽

Informational Content ◽

Current Task ◽

Task Goals

AbstractWorking memory is the function by which we temporarily maintain information to achieve current task goals. Models of working memory typically debate where this information is stored, rather than how it is stored. Here we ask instead what neural mechanisms are involved in storage, and how these mechanisms change as a function of task goals. Participants either had to reproduce the orientation of a memorized bar (continuous recall task), or identify the memorized bar in a search array (visual search task). The sensory input and retention interval were identical in both tasks. Next, we used decoding and forward modeling on multivariate electroencephalogram (EEG) and time-frequency decomposed EEG to investigate which neural signals carry more informational content during the retention interval. In the continuous recall task, working memory content was preferentially carried by induced oscillatory alpha-band power, while in the visual search task it was more strongly carried by the distribution of evoked (consistently elevated and non-oscillatory) EEG activity. To show the independence of these two signals, we were able to remove informational content from one signal without affecting informational content in the other. Finally, we show that the tuning characteristics of both signals change in opposite directions depending on the current task goal. We propose that these signals reflect oscillatory and elevated firing-rate mechanisms that respectively support location-based and object-based maintenance. Together, these data challenge current models of working memory that place storage in particular regions, but rather emphasize the importance of different distributed maintenance signals depending on task goals.Significance statement (120 words)Without realizing, we are constantly moving things in and out of our mind’s eye, an ability also referred to as ‘working memory’. Where did I put my screwdriver? Do we still have milk in the fridge? A central question in working memory research is how the brain maintains this information temporarily. Here we show that different neural mechanisms are involved in working memory depending on what the memory is used for. For example, remembering what a bottle of milk looks like invokes a different neural mechanism from remembering how much milk it contains: the first one primarily involved in being able to find the object, and the other one involving spatial position, such as the milk level in the bottle.

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Role of aging and working memory in performance on a naturalistic visual search task

Cortex ◽

10.1016/j.cortex.2020.12.003 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Jasmine R. Aziz ◽

Samantha R. Good ◽

Raymond M. Klein ◽

Gail A. Eskes

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Visual Search ◽

Search Task ◽

Visual Search Task

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