Individual differences in multiple cues guiding flexible resource allocation in visual short-term memory.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly Lockhart ◽  
Blaire Dube ◽  
Kevin John MacDonald ◽  
Naseem Al-Aidroos ◽  
Stephen Emrich
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Spatial Cues ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Visual Short Term Memory ◽  
Presentation Time ◽  
Flexible Resource ◽  
Priority Levels ◽  
Level Analysis

Although recent evidence suggests that visual short-term memory (VSTM) is a continuous resource, little is known about how flexibly this resource can be allocated. Previous studies using probabilistic cues to indicate two different levels of probe probability have found that response precision can be predicted according to a continuous allocation of resources that depends on attentional priority. The current study used a continuous report procedure and attentional prioritization via simultaneous probabilistic spatial cues to address whether participants can use up to three levels of attentional priority to allocate VSTM resources. Three experiments were performed with differing priority levels, different cues, and cue presentation time. Although group level analysis demonstrated flexible allocation, there was limited evidence that participants were using three priority levels. An individual differences approach revealed that a minority of participants were using three levels of attentional priority, demonstrating that, while possible, it is not the predominant pattern of behavior.

scholarly journals Addressing properties and limitations of flexible resource allocation in visual short-term memory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly A. Lockhart ◽  
Kevin John MacDonald ◽  
Stephen Emrich
Keyword(s):  
Resource Allocation ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Allocation Of Resources ◽  
Spatial Cues ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Visual Short Term Memory ◽  
Flexible Resource ◽  
Memory Resources ◽  
Priority Levels

Although recent evidence suggests that visual short-term memory is a continuous resource, little is known about how flexibly this resource can be allocated. The current study used a continuous report procedure and attentional prioritization via probabilistic spatial cues to address three unknown properties of a flexible continuous resource. The first experiment measured multiple responses from each trial to assess whether multiple items could simultaneously be prioritized. Second, since past work has shown that participants could prioritize VSTM representations according to two states of attentional priority, we examined whether participants could maintain three levels of priority. Lastly, we examined whether flexible allocation is possible when the prioritization cues are provided after initial encoding (i.e. a retro-cue). The results demonstrated that when participants had to recall multiple items on each trial, there were clear differences in response precision between cued and uncued items; however, two items of the same category were not always stored with equal precision. When three attentional priority levels were provided, participants’ precision was no different between high- and medium-priority, but significantly improved over low priority items, suggesting participants did not assign different memory weights to the two higher-priority conditions. When prioritization was performed via retro-cues, participants could re-allocate memory resources, but not when more than one item was to be prioritized, suggesting limitations in the flexible allocation of resources after initial encoding. Together, the results provide evidence of a VSTM resource that is flexibly, but variably, allocated using up to two attentionally guided priority goals, primarily during encoding.

scholarly journals Correlated individual differences suggest a common mechanism underlying metacognition in visual perception and visual short-term memory

2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1867) ◽  
pp. 20172035 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Samaha ◽  
Bradley R. Postle
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Visual Perception ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Adaptive Behaviour ◽  
Common Mechanism ◽  
Stimulus Feature ◽  
Relevant Stimulus ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Visual Short Term Memory

Adaptive behaviour depends on the ability to introspect accurately about one's own performance. Whether this metacognitive ability is supported by the same mechanisms across different tasks is unclear. We investigated the relationship between metacognition of visual perception and metacognition of visual short-term memory (VSTM). Experiments 1 and 2 required subjects to estimate the perceived or remembered orientation of a grating stimulus and rate their confidence. We observed strong positive correlations between individual differences in metacognitive accuracy between the two tasks. This relationship was not accounted for by individual differences in task performance or average confidence, and was present across two different metrics of metacognition and in both experiments. A model-based analysis of data from a third experiment showed that a cross-domain correlation only emerged when both tasks shared the same task-relevant stimulus feature. That is, metacognition for perception and VSTM were correlated when both tasks required orientation judgements, but not when the perceptual task was switched to require contrast judgements. In contrast with previous results comparing perception and long-term memory, which have largely provided evidence for domain-specific metacognitive processes, the current findings suggest that metacognition of visual perception and VSTM is supported by a domain-general metacognitive architecture, but only when both domains share the same task-relevant stimulus feature.

Illusory conjunctions in visual short-term memory: Individual differences in corpus callosum connectivity and splitting attention between the two hemifields

2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (11) ◽  
pp. 1639-1650 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuo Qin ◽  
Nicholas R. Ray ◽  
Nithya Ramakrishnan ◽  
Kaoru Nashiro ◽  
Margaret A. O'Connell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Corpus Callosum ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Visual Short Term Memory ◽  
Illusory Conjunctions

scholarly journals Correlated individual differences suggest a common mechanism underlying metacognition in visual perception and visual short-term memory

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Samaha ◽  
Bradley R. Postle
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Visual Perception ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Stimulus Feature ◽  
Relevant Stimulus ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Visual Short Term Memory

AbstractAdaptive behavior depends on the ability to accurately introspect about one’s own performance. Whether this metacognitive ability is supported by the same mechanisms across different tasks has thus far been investigated with a focus on correlating metacognitive accuracy between perception and long-term memory paradigms. Here, we investigated the relationship between metacognition of visual perception and metacognition of visual short-term memory (VSTM), a cognitive function thought to be more intimately related to visual processing. Experiments 1 and 2 required subjects to estimate the perceived or remembered orientation of a grating stimulus and rate their confidence. We observed strong positive correlations between individual differences in metacognitive accuracy between the two tasks. This relationship was not accounted for by individual differences in task performance or average confidence, and was present across two different metrics of metacognition and in both experiments. A model-based analysis of data from a third experiment showed that a cross-domain correlation only emerged when both tasks shared the same task-relevant stimulus feature. That is, metacognition for perception and VSTM were correlated when both tasks required orientation judgments, but not when the perceptual task was switched to require contrast judgments. In contrast to previous results comparing perception and long-term memory, which have largely provided evidence for domain-specific metacognitive processes, the current findings suggest that metacognition of visual perception and VSTM is supported by a domain-general metacognitive architecture, but only when both domains share the same task-relevant stimulus feature.

scholarly journals Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation of the Right Superior Parietal Lobule Modulates the Retro-Cue Benefit in Visual Short-Term Memory

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 252
Author(s):  
Fabiano Botta ◽  
Juan Lupiáñez ◽  
Valerio Santangelo ◽  
Elisa Martín-Arévalo
Keyword(s):  
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ◽  
Magnetic Stimulation ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Superior Parietal Lobule ◽  
Spatial Cues ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Visual Short Term Memory ◽  
Parietal Lobule ◽  
The Right

Several studies have shown enhanced performance in change detection tasks when spatial cues indicating the probe’s location are presented after the memory array has disappeared (i.e., retro-cues) compared with spatial cues that are presented simultaneously with the test array (i.e., post-cues). This retro-cue benefit led some authors to propose the existence of two different stores of visual short-term memory: a weak but high-capacity store (fragile memory (FM)) linked to the effect of retro-cues and a robust but low-capacity store (working memory (WM)) linked to the effect of post-cues. The former is thought to be an attention-free system, whereas the latter would strictly depend on selective attention. Nonetheless, this dissociation is under debate, and several authors do not consider retro-cues as a proxy to measure the existence of an independent memory system (e.g., FM). We approached this controversial issue by altering the attention-related functions in the right superior parietal lobule (SPL) by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), whose effects were mediated by the integrity of the right superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF). Specifically, we asked whether TMS on the SPL affected the performance of retro cues vs. post-cues to a similar extent. The results showed that TMS on the SPL, mediated by right SLF-III integrity, produced a modulation of the retro-cue benefit, namely a memory capacity decrease in the post-cues but not in the retro-cues. These findings have strong implications for the debate on the existence of independent stages of visual short-term memory and for the growing literature showing a key role of the SLF for explaining the variability of TMS effects across participants.

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