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

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.

Attentional control settings and visual working memory (preprint)

In the present study, we examined whether visual working memory (VWM) can support attentional control settings (ACSs) by maintaining representations of the visual properties that should capture attention. Beyond enhancing capture by memory-matching stimuli, can VWM representations suppress capture by non-matching stimuli? In Experiments 1a/b, participants maintained a colour in VWM that changed every trial while completing a Posner cueing task with memory matching and memory non-matching colour cues. We replicated the conventional finding that the colour in VWM modulated distractor costs, indicating that the colour was represented in the active state. Yet, this colour had no effect on the capture of visual spatial attention measured via cueing effects, suggesting that merely remembering a colour in VWM did not define participants’ ACSs. When participants searched for the colour in VWM, it did support an ACS that eliminated cueing effects by non-matching colours (Experiment 2), though not if participants searched for two colours stored in VWM (Experiment 3). These findings demonstrate that one active representation in VWM can support ACSs, though active representation alone is insufficient. These findings also speak to the ongoing debate about the automaticity of attentional capture by contributing additional evidence that distractor costs and cueing effects are dissociable measures of attentional capture.

The design culture: actions and narratives between archives and exhibitions

The article is focused on the value of design archives as resources to be enhanced through exhibitions, and as heritage for innovation based on process of knowledge re-use, especially for creative industries. Starting from the background of the debate on the new dimension of the archive (especially the one focused on the relation between art and design practices and the archive), the article will focus on a specific context as the one of design archives which have been in recent years particularly vivid realities. Focusing on designer’s archive (in between the broader system of design documentation), and through a case study such as CSAC of University of Parma, we will examine how these archives are not merely repositories of drawings and how they can be connectors for creative industries, through exhibitions and other programs. In the second part of the article, we will focus on three exhibitions devoted to design which are expressions of a huge patrimony organized in structured archives, analysing different curatorial practices and narratives paradigms. In these cases, design exhibitions are ‘active’ representation of design archives.

State anxiety influences P300 and P600 event-related potentials over parietal regions in the hollow-mask illusion experiment

The hollow-mask illusion is an optical illusion where a concave face is perceived as convex. It has been demonstrated that individuals with schizophrenia and anxiety are less susceptible to the illusion than controls. Previous research has shown that the P300 and P600 event-related potentials (ERPs) are affected in individuals with schizophrenia. Here, we examined whether individual differences in neuroticism and anxiety scores, traits that have been suggested to be risk factors for schizophrenia and anxiety disorders, affect ERPs of healthy participants while they view concave faces. Our results confirm that the participants were susceptible to the illusion, misperceiving concave faces as convex. We additionally demonstrate significant interactions of the concave condition with state anxiety in central and parietal electrodes for P300 and parietal areas for P600, but not with neuroticism and trait anxiety. The state anxiety interactions were driven by low-state anxiety participants showing lower amplitudes for concave faces compared to convex. The P300 and P600 amplitudes were smaller when a concave face activated a convex face memory representation, since the stimulus did not match the active representation. The opposite pattern was evident in high-state anxiety participants in regard to state anxiety interaction and the hollow-mask illusion, demonstrating larger P300 and P600 amplitudes to concave faces suggesting impaired late information processing in this group. This could be explained by impaired allocation of attentional resources in high-state anxiety leading to hyperarousal to concave faces that are unexpected mismatches to standard memory representations, as opposed to expected convex faces.

Cognitive Neuroscience of Visual Working Memory

This chapter takes the perspective that ‘working memory’ refers to a class of behaviours that can be accomplished by the coordinated recruitment of sensory-, representational-, action-, and control-related mechanisms and representations. There is no working memory system, per se. This idea is illustrated with findings from cognitive neuroscience, with an emphasis on studies of human working memory with functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography, and on simulations of human behaviour with recurrent neural network modelling. Understanding principles of attention and oculomotor control are central to understanding the selection of stimulus information and its retention ‘in’ working memory, as well as for the moment-to-moment prioritization of subsets of the contents of working memory. Recent research from a dynamical systems perspective suggests a principled framework for understanding how, and under what circumstances, knowledge from long-term memory is recruited to support working memory performance. An important challenge for contemporary cognitive neuroscience is to develop an accepted procedure for assessing when multiple regions can be shown to represent stimulus-specific information, whether these regions are all supporting the same function, or perhaps different functions that nonetheless all entail the active representation of the same information.

This for That: What EEOC Trends Reveal About Representative Bureaucracy

Representative bureaucracy is one of the mechanisms used to achieve representative democracy. This article assesses how bureaucratic representation affects public access to administrative remedies, a recourse linked with social equity in public service organizations. Representative bureaucracy theory is applied to 14 years of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission demographics and outcomes data. The analysis asks whether passive representation trends parallel trends in active representation outcomes, using longitudinal workforce, charge, suit, and resolution data. Results suggest trends in client driven outcomes (charges) were consistent with passive representation, while organizational outcomes (suits and resolutions) outpaced disability representation but fell short of racial and gender representation. The trend analysis findings, which offer timely insights into the effects of human resource management, suggests organizational priorities and processes affect representation more than previously thought.