scholarly journals Variability in the quality of visual working memory

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daryl Fougnie ◽  
Jordan W. Suchow ◽  
George A. Alvarez
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory

scholarly journals Gray Matter Volume in Different Cortical Structures Dissociably Relates to Individual Differences in Capacity and Precision of Visual Working Memory

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (9) ◽  
pp. 4759-4770
Author(s):  
Maro G Machizawa ◽  
Jon Driver ◽  
Takeo Watanabe
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Gray Matter ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Parietal Lobe ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Gray Matter Volume ◽  
Brain Anatomy

Abstract Visual working memory (VWM) refers to our ability to selectively maintain visual information in a mental representation. While cognitive limits of VWM greatly influence a variety of mental operations, it remains controversial whether the quantity or quality of representations in mind constrains VWM. Here, we examined behavior-to-brain anatomical relations as well as brain activity to brain anatomy associations with a “neural” marker specific to the retention interval of VWM. Our results consistently indicated that individuals who maintained a larger number of items in VWM tended to have a larger gray matter (GM) volume in their left lateral occipital region. In contrast, individuals with a superior ability to retain with high precision tended to have a larger GM volume in their right parietal lobe. These results indicate that individual differences in quantity and quality of VWM may be associated with regional GM volumes in a dissociable manner, indicating willful integration of information in VWM may recruit separable cortical subsystems.

scholarly journals Induced Alpha Rhythms Track the Content and Quality of Visual Working Memory Representations with High Temporal Precision

2014 ◽  
Vol 34 (22) ◽  
pp. 7587-7599 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. E. Anderson ◽  
J. T. Serences ◽  
E. K. Vogel ◽  
E. Awh
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Temporal Precision ◽  
Memory Representations

scholarly journals Lateralized alpha oscillations are irrelevant for the behavioral retro-cueing benefit in visual working memory

PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e9398
Author(s):  
Wanja A. Mössing ◽  
Niko A. Busch
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Behavioral Performance ◽  
Alpha Band ◽  
Limited Capacity ◽  
Irrelevant Distractors ◽  
Memory Representations ◽  
Precise Role

The limited capacity of visual working memory (vWM) necessitates the efficient allocation of available resources by prioritizing relevant over irrelevant items. Retro-cues, which inform about the future relevance of items after encoding has already finished, can improve the quality of memory representations of the relevant items. A candidate mechanism of this retro-cueing benefit is lateralization of neural oscillations in the alpha-band, but its precise role is still debated. The relative decrease of alpha power contralateral to the relevant items has been interpreted as supporting inhibition of irrelevant distractors or as supporting maintenance of relevant items. Here, we aimed at resolving this debate by testing how the magnitude of alpha-band lateralization affects behavioral performance: does stronger lateralization improve the precision of the relevant memory or does it reduce the biasing influence of the irrelevant distractor? We found that it does neither: while the data showed a clear retro-cue benefit and a biasing influence of non-target items as well as clear cue-induced alpha-band lateralization, the magnitude of this lateralization was not correlated with any performance parameter. This finding may indicate that alpha-band lateralization, which is typically observed in response to mnemonic cues, indicates an automatic shift of attention that only coincides with, but is not directly involved in mnemonic prioritization.

scholarly journals Encoding Differences Affect the Number and Precision of Own- vs. Other-Race Faces Stored in Visual Working Memory

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaomei Zhou ◽  
Catherine J. Mondloch ◽  
Stephen Emrich
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Mixture Modeling ◽  
Potential Variation ◽  
Continuous Response ◽  
Race Effect ◽  
Measure Of Discrimination ◽  
Binary Measure

Other-race faces are discriminated and recognized less accurately than own-race faces. Despite a wealth of research characterizing this other-race effect (ORE), little is known about the nature of the representations of own- vs. other-race faces. This is because traditional measures of this other-race effect provide a binary measure of discrimination or recognition (correct/incorrect), failing to capture potential variation in the quality of face representations. We applied a novel continuous-response paradigm to independently measure the number of own- and other-race face representations stored in visual working memory (VWM) and the precision with which they are stored. Participants reported target own- or other-race faces on a circular face space that smoothly varied along the dimension of identity. Using probabilistic mixture modeling, we found that following ample encoding time, the ORE is attributable to differences in the probability of a face being maintained in VWM. Reducing encoding time, a manipulation that is more sensitive to encoding limitations, caused a loss of precision or an increase in variability of VWM for other- but not own-race faces. These results suggest that the ORE is driven by the inefficiency with which other-race faces are rapidly encoded in VWM, and provide novel insights about how perceptual experience influences the representation of own- and other-race faces in VWM.

Negative emotion boosts quality of visual working memory representation.

Emotion ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 760-774 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weizhen Xie ◽  
Weiwei Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Negative Emotion ◽  
Memory Representation

scholarly journals Tuning perception: Visual working memory biases the quality of visual awareness

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 1854-1859 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine M. Salahub ◽  
Stephen M. Emrich
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Visual Awareness ◽  
Memory Biases

scholarly journals Lateralized alpha oscillations are irrelevant for the behavioral retro-cueing benefit in visual working memory

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wanja Alexander Mössing ◽  
Niko Busch
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Behavioral Performance ◽  
Alpha Band ◽  
Limited Capacity ◽  
Irrelevant Distractors ◽  
Memory Representations ◽  
Precise Role

The limited capacity of visual working memory (vWM) necessitates the efficient allocation of available resources by prioritizing relevant over irrelevant items. Retro-cues, which inform about the future relevance of items after encoding has already finished, can improve the quality of memory representations of the relevant items. A candidate mechanism of this retro-cueing benefit is lateralization of neural oscillations in the alpha-band, but its precise role is still debated. The relative decrease of alpha power contralateral to the relevant items has been interpreted as supporting inhibition of irrelevant distractors or as supporting maintenance of relevant items. Here, we aimed at resolving this debate by testing how the magnitude of alpha-band lateralization affects behavioral performance: does stronger lateralization improve the precision of the relevant memory or does it reduce the biasing influence of the irrelevant distractor? We found that it does neither: while the data showed a clear retro-cue benefit and a biasing influence of non-target items as well as clear cue-induced alpha-band lateralization, the magnitude of this lateralization was not correlated with any performance parameter. This finding may indicate that alpha-band lateralization, which is typically observed in response to mnemonic cues, indicates an automatic shift of attention that only coincides with, but is not directly involved in mnemonic prioritization.

scholarly journals Tuning perception: the content of visual working memory biases the quality of visual awareness

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. 687
Author(s):  
Christine Salahub ◽  
Stephen Emrich
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Visual Awareness ◽  
Memory Biases
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