scholarly journals Reward Expectation Differentially Modulates Global and Local Spatial Working Memory Accuracy

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qingjie Zhou ◽  
Zanzan Jiang ◽  
Jinhong Ding
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Local Level ◽  
High Reward ◽  
Reconstruction Performance ◽  
Flexible Resource ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Global And Local ◽  
Level Of Processing

Although it has been suggested that reward expectation affects the performance of spatial working memory tasks, controversial results have been found in previous experiments. Hence, it is still unclear to what extent reward expectation has an effect on working memory. To clarify this question, a memory-guided saccade task was applied, in which participants were instructed to retain and reconstruct a temporospatial sequence of four locations by moving their eyes in each trial. The global- and local-level spatial working memory accuracies were calculated to determine the reward effect on the global and local level of processing in spatial working memory tasks. Although high reward expectation enhanced the encoding of spatial information, the percentage of trials in which the cued location was correctly fixated decreased with increment of reward expectation. The reconstruction of the global temporospatial sequence was enhanced by reward expectation, whereas the local reconstruction performance was not affected by reward. Furthermore, the improvements in local representations of uncued locations and local sequences were at the cost of the representation of cued locations. The results suggest that the reward effect on spatial working memory is modulated by the level of processing, which supports the flexible resource theory during maintenance.

scholarly journals Negative Effects of Embodiment in a Visuo-Spatial Working Memory Task in Children, Young Adults, and Older Adults

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianluca Amico ◽  
Sabine Schaefer
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Negative Effects

Studies examining the effect of embodied cognition have shown that linking one’s body movements to a cognitive task can enhance performance. The current study investigated whether concurrent walking while encoding or recalling spatial information improves working memory performance, and whether 10-year-old children, young adults, or older adults (Mage = 72 years) are affected differently by embodiment. The goal of the Spatial Memory Task was to encode and recall sequences of increasing length by reproducing positions of target fields in the correct order. The nine targets were positioned in a random configuration on a large square carpet (2.5 m × 2.5 m). During encoding and recall, participants either did not move, or they walked into the target fields. In a within-subjects design, all possible combinations of encoding and recall conditions were tested in counterbalanced order. Contrary to our predictions, moving particularly impaired encoding, but also recall. These negative effects were present in all age groups, but older adults’ memory was hampered even more strongly by walking during encoding and recall. Our results indicate that embodiment may not help people to memorize spatial information, but can create a dual-task situation instead.

scholarly journals Fine Spike Timing in Hippocampal–Prefrontal Ensembles Predicts Poor Encoding and Underlies Behavioral Performance in Healthy and Malformed Brains

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-158
Author(s):  
Amanda E Hernan ◽  
J Matthew Mahoney ◽  
Willie Curry ◽  
Seamus Mawe ◽  
Rod C Scott
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Spike Timing ◽  
Functional Network ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Encode Task ◽  
To Receive ◽  
Task Parameters

Abstract Spatial working memory (SWM) is a central cognitive process during which the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex (PFC) encode and maintain spatial information for subsequent decision-making. This occurs in the context of ongoing computations relating to spatial position, recall of long-term memory, attention, among many others. To establish how intermittently presented information is integrated with ongoing computations we recorded single units, simultaneously in hippocampus and PFC, in control rats and those with a brain malformation during performance of an SWM task. Neurons that encode intermittent task parameters are also well modulated in time and incorporated into a functional network across regions. Neurons from animals with cortical malformation are poorly modulated in time, less likely to encode task parameters, and less likely to be integrated into a functional network. Our results implicate a model in which ongoing oscillatory coordination among neurons in the hippocampal–PFC network describes a functional network that is poised to receive sensory inputs that are then integrated and multiplexed as working memory. The background temporal modulation is systematically altered in disease, but the relationship between these dynamics and behaviorally relevant firing is maintained, thereby providing potential targets for stimulation-based therapies.

scholarly journals Neural Bases of Human Working Memory

2000 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward E. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Rhesus Monkeys ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Neural System ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Positron Emission ◽  
Neural Bases ◽  
Substantial Effort ◽  
Neuroimaging Techniques

Working memory is the memory system that allows us to briefly keep information active, often so we can operate on it. Studies with rhesus monkeys first established that this system is partly mediated by neural mechanisms in the pre-frontal cortex. Recently, there has been a substantial effort to study the neural bases of working memory in humans, using neuroimaging techniques such as positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Some of the initial neuroimaging studies with humans focused on the neural mechanisms that mediate our ability to keep spatial information active. These results indicated that human spatial working memory is partly mediated by regions in parietal and prefrontal cortex. Subsequent research has shown that a different neural system is involved when people store object (rather than spatial) information, a difference similar to that found in monkeys.

Processing symmetry between visual and auditory spatial representations in updating working memory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomoki Maezawa ◽  
Jun Kawahara
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Spatial Updating ◽  
Spatial Representations ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Visual Spatial ◽  
Matrix Surface ◽  
Memory Representations

Updating spatial representations in visual and auditory working memory relies on common processes, and the modalities should compete for attentional resources. The present study examined the relative dominance of memory updating using incompatible spatial information conveyed from two different cue modalities. Participants maneuvered a designated target on a matrix surface according to visual or auditory stimuli that were simultaneously presented, to identify a terminal location. Prior to the navigation task, the relative perceptual salience of the visual cues was manipulated to be equal, superior, or inferior to the auditory cues. The results demonstrated that visual and auditory inputs competed for attentional resources such that visual/auditory guidance was impaired by incongruent cues delivered from the other modality. Although visual dominance was favored in working memory navigation on average, stimuli of relatively high salience interfered with or facilitated other stimuli regardless of modality, demonstrating the similarity of updating processes in visual and auditory spatial working memory. Furthermore, processing asymmetry can be identified during the encoding of sensory inputs into working memory representations. The present results suggest that auditory spatial updating is comparable to visual spatial updating in that salient stimuli receive a high priority when selecting inputs and are used when tracking spatial representations.

scholarly journals Optogenetic suppression of the medial septum impairs working memory maintenance

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (10) ◽  
pp. 361-370
Author(s):  
Zachary M. Gemzik ◽  
Margaret M. Donahue ◽  
Amy L. Griffin
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Conditional Discrimination ◽  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Medial Septum ◽  
Temporal Delay ◽  
Choice Accuracy

Spatial working memory (SWM) is the ability to encode, maintain, and retrieve spatial information over a temporal gap, and relies on a network of structures including the medial septum (MS), which provides critical input to the hippocampus. Although the role of the MS in SWM is well-established, up until recently, we have been unable to use temporally precise circuit manipulation techniques to examine the specific role of the MS in SWM, particularly to distinguish between encoding, maintenance, and retrieval. Here, we test the hypothesis that the MS supports the maintenance of spatial information over a temporal gap using precisely timed optogenetic suppression delivered during specific portions of three different tasks, two of which rely on SWM and one that does not. In experiment 1, we found that MS optogenetic suppression impaired choice accuracy of a SWM dependent conditional discrimination task. Moreover, this deficit was only observed when MS suppression was delivered during the cue-sampling, but not the cue-retrieval, portion of the trial. There was also no deficit when MS neurons were optogenetically suppressed as rats performed a SWM-independent variant of the task. In experiment 2, we tested whether MS suppression affected choice accuracy on a delayed nonmatch to position (DNMP) task when suppression was limited to the sample, delay, and choice phases of the task. We found that MS suppression delivery during the delay phase of the DNMP task, but not during the sample or choice phases, impaired choice accuracy. Our results collectively suggest that the MS plays an important role in SWM by maintaining task-relevant information over a temporal delay.

Does the Modality Effect in Multimedia Learning Appear only with Text Containing Spatial Information?

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 257-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Schüler ◽  
Katharina Scheiter ◽  
Peter Gerjets
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Multimedia Learning ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Modality Effect ◽  
Picture Recognition ◽  
Written Text ◽  
Spoken Text ◽  
Text Content

Abstract.The current study tested the assumption that the modality effect in multimedia learning only appears when the text conveys spatial rather than non-spatial information. This assumption is based on findings from working memory research suggesting that the processing of spatial text contents and the execution of eye movements during reading may interfere with each other in visuo-spatial working memory. To test this hypothesis, 80 students were randomly assigned to four groups, resulting from a 2 × 2 design with text modality (spoken vs. written text) and text contents (visual vs. spatial) as between-subject factors. Learning outcomes were measured by means of text and picture recognition. Eye movements were recorded during learning. The results did not confirm the expected interaction between text content and text modality. In addition, the main effect of text modality effect was limited to picture recognition but did not appear for text recognition. This modality effect was mediated by the amount of concentration participants reported to have invested into studying the pictures. These results imply that the often found superiority of spoken text in multimedia learning might simply be due to a better availability of pictorial information instead of an overload of visuo-spatial working memory when processing written text.

When a place is not a place: encoding of spatial information is dependent on reward type

Behaviour ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 147 (11) ◽  
pp. 1461-1479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle Sulikowski ◽  
Darren Burke
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Prey Item ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Point Location ◽  
Noisy Miner ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe adaptationist perspective investigates how an animal's cognition has been shaped by the informational properties of the environment. The information that is useful may vary from one context to another. In the current study we examine how manipulating the foraging context (the type of resource being foraged) could affect the way spatial information is used by the forager. Noisy miner birds (omnivorous honeyeaters) were given spatial working memory tasks in which they searched baited and unbaited feeders for either nectar or invertebrates. We hypothesised that noisy miners would encode the locations of baited and unbaited feeders equally well when foraging for nectar (all flowers, whether containing nectar or not are places to remember and avoid while foraging on a plant). When foraging for invertebrates, however, we predicted that noisy miner birds would not encode the locations of unbaited feeders as effectively as baited feeders (in a natural patch of invertebrates there is no cue to differentiate a point location where a prey item has not been found from the rest of the potentially homogenous patch). As predicted, birds foraging for invertebrates made more revisits to unbaited than baited feeders, with no such difference evident when birds were foraging for nectar.

Modeling Mental Navigation in Scenes with Multiple Objects

2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. 1851-1872 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Byrne ◽  
Suzanna Becker
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Neural Circuit ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Spatial Updating ◽  
Multiple Objects ◽  
Object Locations ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Memory Representations ◽  
Experimental Findings

Various lines of evidence indicate that animals process spatial information regarding object locations differently from spatial information regarding environmental boundaries or landmarks. Following Wang and Spelke's (2002) observation that spatial updating of egocentric representations appears to lie at the heart of many navigational tasks in many species, including humans, we postulate a neural circuit that can support this computation in parietal cortex, assuming that egocentric representations of multiple objects can be maintained in prefrontal cortex in spatial working memory (not simulated here). Our method is a generalization of an earlier model by Droulez and Berthoz (1991), with extensions to support observer rotation. We can thereby simulate perspective transformation of working memory representations of object coordinates based on an egomotion signal presumed to be generated via mental navigation. This biologically plausible transformation would allow a subject to recall the locations of previously viewed objects from novel viewpoints reached via imagined, discontinuous, or disoriented displacement. Finally, we discuss how this model can account for a wide range of experimental findings regarding memory for object locations, and we present several predictions made by the model.

scholarly journals Sport as a Factor in Improving Visual Spatial Cognitive Deficits in Patients with Hearing Loss and Chronic Vestibular Deficit

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-300
Author(s):  
Giorgio Guidetti ◽  
Riccardo Guidetti ◽  
Silvia Quaglieri
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Cognitive Deficits ◽  
Healthy Subjects ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Sport Activity ◽  
Visual Spatial ◽  
Visual Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Vestibular Deficit

Hearing loss and chronic vestibular pathologies require brain adaptive mechanisms supported by a cross-modal cortical plasticity. They are often accompanied by cognitive deficits. Spatial memory is a cognitive process responsible for recording information about the spatial environment and spatial orientation. Visual-spatial working memory (VSWM) is a kind of short-term working memory that allows spatial information to be temporarily stored and manipulated. It can be conditioned by hearing loss and also well-compensated chronic vestibular deficit. Vestibular rehabilitation and hearing aid devices or training are able to improve the VSWM. We studied 119 subjects suffering from perinatal or congenital hearing loss, compared with 532 healthy subjects and 404 patients with well-compensated chronic vestibular deficit (CVF). VSWM was evaluated by the eCorsi test. The subjects suffering from chronic hearing loss and/or unilateral or bilateral vestibular deficit showed a VSWM less efficient than healthy people, but much better than those with CVF, suggesting a better multimodal adaptive strategy, probably favored by a cross-modal plasticity which also provides habitual use of lip reading. The sport activity cancels the difference with healthy subjects. It is therefore evident that patients with this type of deficit since childhood should be supported and advised on a sport activity or repeated vestibular stimulation.

scholarly journals Striatal Versus Hippocampal Representations During Win-Stay Maze Performance

2009 ◽  
Vol 101 (3) ◽  
pp. 1575-1587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua D. Berke ◽  
Jason T. Breck ◽  
Howard Eichenbaum
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Neural Coding ◽  
Hippocampal Neurons ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Dorsal Hippocampus ◽  
Place Cell ◽  
Projection Neurons ◽  
Behavioral Strategies ◽  
Cell Type

The striatum and hippocampus are widely held to be components of distinct memory systems that can guide competing behavioral strategies. However, some electrophysiological studies have suggested that neurons in both structures encode spatial information and may therefore make similar contributions to behavior. In rats well trained to perform a win-stay radial maze task, we recorded simultaneously from dorsal hippocampus and from multiple striatal subregions, including both lateral areas implicated in motor responses to cues and medial areas that work cooperatively with hippocampus in cognitive operations. In each brain region, movement through the maze was accompanied by the continuous sequential activation of sets of projection neurons. Hippocampal neurons overwhelmingly were active at a single spatial location (place cells). Striatal projection neurons were active at discrete points within the progression of every trial—especially during choices or following reward delivery—regardless of spatial position. Place-cell–type firing was not observed even for medial striatal cells entrained to the hippocampal theta rhythm. We also examined neural coding in earlier training sessions, when rats made use of spatial working memory to guide choices, and again found that striatal cells did not show place-cell–type firing. Prospective or retrospective encoding of trajectory was not observed in either hippocampus or striatum, at either training stage. Our results indicate that, at least in this task, dorsal hippocampus uses a spatial foundation for information processing that is not substantially modulated by spatial working memory demands. By contrast, striatal cells do not use such a spatial foundation, even in medial subregions that cooperate with hippocampus in the selection of spatial strategies. The progressive dominance of a striatum-dependent strategy does not appear to be accompanied by large changes in striatal or hippocampal single-cell representations, suggesting that the conflict between strategies may be resolved elsewhere.

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