scholarly journals Perceptual stimuli with novel bindings interfere with visual working memory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Shepherdson
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Change Detection ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Recall Performance ◽  
Visual Interference ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Subsequent Recall ◽  
New Feature ◽  
Change Response

AbstractWhat influences the extent to which perceptual information interferes with the contents of visual working memory? In two experiments using a combination of change detection and continuous reproduction tasks, I show that binding novelty is a key factor in producing interference. In Experiment 2, participants viewed arrays of colored circles, then completed consecutive change detection and recall tests of their memory for stochastically independent items from the same array. When the probe used in the change detection test was novel (i.e., required a “change” response), subsequent recall performance was worse than in trials with matching (i.e., “no change”) probes, irrespective of whether or not the same item was tested in both phases. In Experiment 2, participants viewed arrays of oriented arrows, then completed a change detection (requiring memory) or direction judgement (not requiring memory) test, followed by recalling a stochastically independent item. Again, novel probes in the first phase led to worse recall, irrespective of whether the initial task required memory. This effect held whether the probe was wholly novel (i.e., a new feature presented at any location) or simply involved a novel binding (i.e., an old feature presented at a new location). These findings highlight the role of novelty in visual interference, consistent with the assumptions of computational models of WM, and suggest that new bindings of old information are sufficient to produce such interference.

scholarly journals The development of retro-cue benefits with extensive practice: Implications for capacity estimation and attentional states in visual working memory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Zerr ◽  
Surya Gayet ◽  
Floris van den Esschert ◽  
Mitchel Kappen ◽  
Zoril Olah ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Change Detection ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
High Capacity ◽  
Visual Short Term Memory ◽  
Memory Store ◽  
Visual Interference ◽  
Memory Resources

AbstractAccessing the contents of visual short-term memory (VSTM) is compromised by information bottlenecks and visual interference between memorization and recall. Retro-cues, displayed after the offset of a memory stimulus and prior to the onset of a probe stimulus, indicate the test item and improve performance in VSTM tasks. It has been proposed that retro-cues aid recall by transferring information from a high-capacity memory store into visual working memory (multiple-store hypothesis). Alternatively, retro-cues could aid recall by redistributing memory resources within the same (low-capacity) working memory store (single-store hypothesis). If retro-cues provide access to a memory store with a capacity exceeding the set size, then, given sufficient training in the use of the retro-cue, near-ceiling performance should be observed. To test this prediction, 10 observers each performed 12 hours across 8 sessions in a retro-cue change-detection task (40,000+ trials total). The results provided clear support for the single-store hypothesis: retro-cue benefits (difference between a condition with and without retro-cues) emerged after a few hundred trials and then remained constant throughout the testing sessions, consistently improving performance by two items, rather than reaching ceiling performance. Surprisingly, we also observed a general increase in performance throughout the experiment in conditions with and without retro-cues, calling into question the generalizability of change-detection tasks in assessing working memory capacity as a stable trait of an observer (data and materials are available at osf.io/9xr82 and github.com/paulzerr/retrocues). In summary, the present findings suggest that retro-cues increase capacity estimates by redistributing memory resources across memoranda within a low-capacity working memory store.

scholarly journals Does perceptual grouping improve visuospatial working memory? Optimized processing or encoding bias

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Prieto ◽  
Vanesa Peinado ◽  
Julia Mayas
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Change Detection ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Detection Accuracy ◽  
Visuospatial Working Memory ◽  
Gestalt Grouping ◽  
Color Similarity ◽  
Automatic Encoding ◽  
Change Detection Performance

AbstractVisual working memory has been defined as a system of limited capacity that enables the maintenance and manipulation of visual information. However, some perceptual features like Gestalt grouping could improve visual working memory effectiveness. In two different experiments, we aimed to explore how the presence of elements grouped by color similarity affects the change detection performance of both, grouped and non-grouped items. We combined a change detection task with a retrocue paradigm in which a six item array had to be remembered. An always valid, variable-delay retrocue appeared in some trials during the retention interval, either after 100 ms (iconic-trace period) or 1400 ms (working memory period), signaling the location of the probe. The results indicated that similarity grouping biased the information entered into the visual working memory, improving change detection accuracy only for previously grouped probes, but hindering change detection for non-grouped probes in certain conditions (Exp. 1). However, this bottom-up automatic encoding bias was overridden when participants were explicitly instructed to ignore grouped items as they were irrelevant for the task (Exp. 2).

A direct neural measure of variable precision representations in visual working memory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Merkel ◽  
Mandy Viktoria Bartsch ◽  
Mircea A Schoenfeld ◽  
Anne-Katrin Vellage ◽  
Notger G Müller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Recall Performance ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Item Information ◽  
Estimation Task ◽  
Active Representation ◽  
Contralateral Delay Activity ◽  
Memory Representations ◽  
Precision Estimation

Visual working memory (VWM) is an active representation enabling the manipulation of item information even in the absence of visual input. A common way to investigate VWM is to analyze the performance at later recall. This approach, however, leaves uncertainties about whether the variation of recall performance is attributable to item encoding and maintenance or to the testing of memorized information. Here, we record the contralateral delay activity (CDA) - an established electrophysiological measure of item storage and maintenance - in human subjects performing a delayed orientation precision estimation task. This allows us to link the fluctuation of recall precision directly to the process of item encoding and maintenance. We show that for two sequentially encoded orientation items, the CDA amplitude reflects the precision of orientation recall of both items, with higher precision being associated with a larger amplitude. Furthermore, we show that the CDA amplitude for each item varies independently from each other, suggesting that the precision of memory representations fluctuates independently.

scholarly journals What can half a million change detection trials tell us about visual working memory?

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (10) ◽  
pp. 76c
Author(s):  
Roy Luria ◽  
Keisuke Fukuda ◽  
Halely Balaban
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Change Detection ◽  
Visual Working Memory

scholarly journals The Role of Phonological and Visual Working Memory in Carry Operations or Intermediate Solutions in Complex Mental Arithmetic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Wei Dai
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Change Detection ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Mental Arithmetic ◽  
Arithmetic Operation ◽  
Phonological Working Memory ◽  
Mental Addition ◽  
Memory Resources

<p>The present research comprises four experiments designed to explore the role of visual and phonological working memory resources in carry operations or intermediate solutions in complex mental addition and multiplication. A special consideration was given to the effect of arithmetic operation on the relative involvement of visual and phonological resources in complex addition and multiplication.  A pilot study was conducted prior to the experiments, aiming to examine the suitability of visual and phonological stimuli for change detection and working memory capacity estimation. Two staff of Victoria University of Wellington with normal or corrected vision attended the pilot study as participants. Pilot Experiments 1 to 4 tested the suitability for probing visual working memory (VWM) capacity of two types of visual stimulus with different feature dimensions: bars of different orientations and Gabor patches with different orientations and spatial frequencies. A single-probe change-detection experimental paradigm was used, with participants making decisions about whether or not probe items were the same as memory items presented previously. Both presentation durations and set sizes were manipulated. Stable estimates of visual working memory capacities were found when Gabor patches with varied spatial frequencies were used, suggesting its utility as a probe for estimating visual working memory capacity. Pilot Experiment 5 was designed to examine the suitability of pronounceable consonant-vowel-consonant non-words as a probe of phonological working memory (PWM). Valid estimates of PWM capacity were found for both participants, suggesting the suitability of phonological non-words as phonological stimuli of assessing PWM capacities and interfering with information phonologically-represented and maintained in working memory.  Experiments 1 to 4 investigated the relative involvement of visual and phonological working memory resources in carry operations or intermediate solutions in mental addition and multiplication. Fifty-six undergraduate students of Victoria University of Wellington participated all experiments, and 48 of them provided valid data for final analysis. A dual-task interference paradigm was used in all experiments, with arithmetic tasks and visual/phonological change-detection tasks either performed alone, or simultaneously. For arithmetic tasks, double-digit addition problems and multiplication problems comprising one single-digit and one double-digit were presented horizontally and continuously, and participants reported the final solutions verbally. For visual change-detection tasks, study items were visually presented to participants for 1,000ms before they disappeared. After a 4000ms retention interval, a probe item was presented and participants judged whether the probe item was the same as one of the memory items. For phonological change-detection tasks, phonological nonwords were verbally presented to participants sequentially. After a 4000ms retention interval, a probe nonword was presented to participants, and they indicated whether or not the probe was the same as one of the study non-words. Both numbers of carry operations involved in the arithmetic problems (zero, one, and two) and levels of visual/phonological loads (low, medium, and high) were manipulated in all experiments.   For all experiments, the effect of the number of carry operations on calculation performance was observed: arithmetic problems involving more carry operations were solved less rapidly and accurately. This effect was enlarged by concurrent visual and phonological loads, evidenced by significant interactions between task conditions and number of carry operations observed in the accuracy analyses of the arithmetic tasks in all experiments except Experiment 2, in which multiplication problems were solved under visual loads. These findings suggest that both visual and phonological resources are required for the temporary storage of intermediate solutions or carry information in mental addition, while for mental multiplication, only evidence for a role of phonological representations in carry operations was found.  For all experiments, the greater performance impairment of carry problems than no-carry problems associated with the presence of working memory loads was not further increased by increasing load level: There were no significant three-way interactions between task conditions, number of carry operations and load levels in accuracy analyses of arithmetic tasks. One possible explanation for this absence of significant three-way interactions might be attributable to some participants switching between phonological and visual working memory for the temporary storage of carrier information or intermediate solutions as a result of decreasing amount of available phonological or visual working memory resources.  In conclusion, the findings of the present research provide support for a role of both visual and phonological working memory resources in carry operations in mental addition, and a role of phonological working memory resources in carry operation in mental multiplication. Thus, it can be concluded that solving mental arithmetic problems involving carry-operations requires working memory resources. However, these results contradict the prediction of the Triple Code Model, which assumes addition mainly relies on visual processing, and multiplication mainly relies on verbal processing, while complex mental arithmetic is solved with the aid of visual processing regardless of the arithmetic operation. Thus, these results challenge the operation-specific involvement of working memory resources in complex mental arithmetic. However, it should be noted that the same arithmetic problems were solved three times by the same participants, which might have encouraged more activation in phonological processing than visual processing due to the practice effect.</p>

scholarly journals Atypically larger variability of resource allocation accounts for visual working memory deficits in schizophrenia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi-Jie Zhao ◽  
Tianye Ma ◽  
Xuemei Ran ◽  
Li Zhang ◽  
Ru-Yuan Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Variable Precision ◽  
Capacity Theory ◽  
Healthy Control ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Memory Precision ◽  
Memory Resources

AbstractSchizophrenia patients are known to have profound deficits in visual working memory (VWM), and almost all previous studies attribute the deficits to decreased memory capacity. This account, however, ignores the potential contributions of other VWM components (e.g., memory precision). Here, we measure the VWM performance of schizophrenia patients and healthy control subjects on two classical delay-estimation tasks. Moreover, we thoroughly evaluate several established computational models of VWM to compare the performance of the two groups. We find that the model assuming variable precision across items and trials is the best model to explain the performance of both groups. According to the variable-precision model, schizophrenia subjects exhibit abnormally larger variability of allocating memory resources rather than resources per se. These results invite a rethink of the widely accepted decreased-capacity theory and propose a new perspective on the diagnosis and rehabilitation of schizophrenia.

scholarly journals Object maintenance beyond their visible parts in working memory

2018 ◽  
Vol 119 (1) ◽  
pp. 347-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siyi Chen ◽  
Thomas Töllner ◽  
Hermann J. Müller ◽  
Markus Conci
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Change Detection ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Mental Image ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Visual Input ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Physically Identical ◽  
Partially Occluded

Completion of a partially occluded object requires that a representation of the whole is constructed based on the information provided by the physically specified parts of the stimulus. Such processes of amodal completion rely on the generation and maintenance of a mental image that renders the completed object in visual working memory (VWM). The present study examined this relationship between VWM storage and processes of object completion. We recorded event-related potentials to track VWM maintenance by means of the contralateral delay activity (CDA) during a change detection task in which composite objects (notched shapes abutting an occluding shape) to be memorized were primed to induce either a globally completed object or a noncompleted, mosaic representation. The results revealed an effect of completion in VWM despite physically identical visual input: change detection was more accurate for completed compared with mosaic representations when observers were required to memorize two objects, and these differences were reduced with four memorized items. At the electrophysiological level, globally completed (vs. mosaic) objects gave rise to a corresponding increase in CDA amplitudes. These results indicate that although incorporating the occluded portions of the presented shapes requires mnemonic resources, the complete object representations thus formed in VWM improve change detection performance by providing a more simple, regular shape. Overall, these findings demonstrate that mechanisms of object completion modulate VWM, with the memory load being determined by the structured representations of the memorized stimuli. NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study shows that completion of partially occluded objects requires visual working memory (VWM) resources. In the experiment reported, we induced observers to memorize a given visual input either as completed or as noncompleted objects. The results revealed both a behavioral performance advantage for completed vs. noncompleted objects despite physically identical input, and an associated modulation of an electrophysiological component that reflects VWM object retention, thus indicating that constructing an integrated object consumes mnemonic resources.

Visual Working Memory Represents a Fixed Number of Items Regardless of Complexity

2007 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 622-628 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Awh ◽  
Brian Barton ◽  
Edward K. Vogel
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Change Detection ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Factor Model ◽  
Fixed Number ◽  
Strongly Correlated ◽  
Complex Objects ◽  
Memory Ability ◽  
Sample Test ◽  
Capacity Estimates

Does visual working memory represent a fixed number of objects, or is capacity reduced as object complexity increases? We measured accuracy in detecting changes between sample and test displays and found that capacity estimates dropped as complexity increased. However, these apparent capacity reductions were strongly correlated with increases in sample-test similarity ( r = .97), raising the possibility that change detection was limited by errors in comparing the sample and test, rather than by the number of items that were maintained in working memory. Accordingly, when sample-test similarity was low, capacity estimates for even the most complex objects were equivalent to the estimate for the simplest objects ( r = .88), suggesting that visual working memory represents a fixed number of items regardless of complexity. Finally, a correlational analysis suggested a two-factor model of working memory ability, in which the number and resolution of representations in working memory correspond to distinct dimensions of memory ability.

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