scholarly journals Serial dependence is absent at the time of perception but increases in visual working memory

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel P. Bliss ◽  
Jerome J. Sun ◽  
Mark D’Esposito

ABSTRACTRecent experiments have shown that visual cognition blends current visual input with that from the recent past to guide ongoing decision making. This serial dependence is tuned to the similarity between consecutive stimuli and appears to exploit the temporal autocorrelation normally present in visual scenes to promote perceptual stability. While these benefits have been assumed, evidence that serial dependence directly alters stimulus perception has been limited. In the present study, we parametrically vary the delay between stimulus and response in a spatial delayed response task to explore the trajectory of serial dependence from the moment of perception into post-perceptual visual working memory. We find that behavioral responses made immediately after viewing a stimulus show evidence of adaptation, but not attractive serial dependence. Only as the memory period lengthens is a blending of past and present information apparent in behavior, reaching its maximum with a memory delay of six seconds. These results dovetail with other recent findings to bolster the interpretation that serial dependence is a phenomenon of mnemonic rather than perceptual processes. We also demonstrate that when leading mathematical models of visual working memory are adjusted to account for this trial-history effect, their fit to behavioral data is substantially improved.

2001 ◽  
Vol 86 (4) ◽  
pp. 2041-2053 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toshiyuki Sawaguchi ◽  
Michiyo Iba

In primates, dorsolateral areas of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) play a major role in visuospatial working memory. To examine the functional organization of the PFC for representing visuospatial working memory, we produced reversible local inactivation, with the local injection of muscimol (5 μg, 1 μl), at various sites ( n = 100) in the dorsolateral PFC of monkeys and observed the behavioral consequences in an oculomotor delayed-response task that required memory-guided saccades for locations throughout both visual fields. At 82 sites, the local injection of muscimol induced deficits in memory-guided saccades to a few specific, usually contralateral, target locations that varied with the location of the injection site. Such deficits depended on the delay length, and longer delays were associated with larger deficits in memory-guided saccades. The injection sites and affected spatial locations of the target showed a gross topographical relationship. No deficits appeared for a control task in which the subject was required to make a visually guided saccade to a visible target. These findings suggest that a specific site in the dorsolateral PFC is responsible for the working memory process for a specific visuospatial coordinate to guide goal-directed behavior. Further, memoranda for specific visuospatial coordinates appear to be represented in a topographical memory mapwithin the dorsolateral PFC to represent visuospatial working memory processes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 110 (2) ◽  
pp. 256-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Czoschke ◽  
Cora Fischer ◽  
Julia Beitner ◽  
Jochen Kaiser ◽  
Christoph Bledowski

1999 ◽  
Vol 275 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
P Stratta ◽  
E Daneluzzo ◽  
P Prosperini ◽  
M Bustini ◽  
M.G Marinangeli ◽  
...  

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darinka Trübutschek ◽  
Sébastien Marti ◽  
Andrés Ojeda ◽  
Jean-Rémi King ◽  
Yuanyuan Mi ◽  
...  

AbstractWorking memory and conscious perception are thought to share similar brain mechanisms, yet recent reports of non-conscious working memory challenge this view. Combining visual masking with magnetoencephalography, we demonstrate the reality of non-conscious working memory and dissect its neural mechanisms. In a spatial delayed-response task, participants reported the location of a subjectively unseen target above chance-level after a long delay. Conscious perception and conscious working memory were characterized by similar signatures: a sustained desynchronization in the alpha/beta band over frontal cortex, and a decodable representation of target location in posterior sensors. During non-conscious working memory, such activity vanished. Our findings contradict models that identify working memory with sustained neural firing, but are compatible with recent proposals of ‘activity-silent’ working memory. We present a theoretical framework and simulations showing how slowly decaying synaptic changes allow cell assemblies to go dormant during the delay, yet be retrieved above chance-level after several seconds.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas A. Upright ◽  
Mark G. Baxter

AbstractThe most common chemogenetic neuromodulatory system, Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs (DREADDs), uses a non-endogenous actuator ligand to activate a modified muscarinic acetylcholine receptor that is no longer sensitive to acetylcholine. It is crucial in studies using these systems to test the potential effects of DREADD actuators prior to any DREADD transduction, so that effects of DREADDs can be attributed to the chemogenetic system rather than the actuator drug. We investigated working memory performance after injections of three DREADD agonists, clozapine, olanzapine, and deschloroclozapine, in male rhesus monkeys tested in a spatial delayed response task. Performance at 0.1 mg/kg clozapine and 0.1 mg/kg deschloroclozapine did not differ from mean performance after vehicle in any of the four subjects. Administration of 0.2 mg/kg clozapine impaired working memory function in three of the four monkeys. Two monkeys were impaired after administration of 0.1 mg/kg olanzapine and two monkeys were impaired after the 0.3 mg/kg dose of deschloroclozapine. We speculate that the unique neuropharmacology of prefrontal cortex function makes the primate prefrontal cortex especially vulnerable to off-target effects of DREADD actuator drugs with affinity for endogenous monoaminergic receptor systems. These findings underscore the importance of within-subject controls for DREADD actuator drugs to confirm that effects following DREADD receptor transduction are not due to the actuator drug itself, as well as validating the behavioral pharmacology of DREADD actuator drugs in the specific tasks under study.Significance StatementChemogenetic technologies, such as Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs (DREADDs), allow for precise and remote manipulation of neuronal circuits. In the present study, we tested monkeys in a spatial delayed response task after injections of three actuator drugs – clozapine, olanzapine, and deschloroclozapine. We found that monkeys showed significant working memory impairments after 0.2 mg/kg clozapine, 0.1 mg/kg olanzapine, and 0.3 mg/kg deschloroclozapine compared to vehicle performance. In monkeys that showed impairments, these deficits were particularly apparent at longer delay periods. It is imperative to validate the drugs and dosages in the particular behavioral test to ensure any behavior after DREADD transduction can be attributed to activation of the receptors and not administration of the actuator drug itself.


2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 1371-1381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abigail Z. Rajala ◽  
Jeffrey B. Henriques ◽  
Luis C. Populin

Low doses of methylphenidate reduce hyperactivity and improve attention in individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as well as in healthy humans and animals. Despite its extensive use, relatively little is known about its mechanisms of action. This study investigated the effects of methylphenidate on working memory performance, impulsivity, response accuracy and precision, and the ability to stay on task in rhesus monkeys using an oculomotor delayed response task. Methylphenidate affected task performance in an inverted-U manner in all three subjects tested. The improvements resulted from a reduction in premature responses and, importantly, not from improvement in the memory of target location. The length of time subjects participated in each session was also affected dose dependently. However, the dose at which the length of participation was maximally increased significantly impaired performance on the working memory task. This dissociation of effects has implications for the treatment of ADHD, for the nonprescription use of methylphenidate for cognitive enhancement, and for furthering the basic understanding of the neural substrate underlying these processes.


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