Journal Article10.1037/xge0001479
Object-based encoding constrains storage in visual working memory.
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TL;DR: Object-based encoding constrains storage in visual working memory, limiting the number of objects that can be stored.
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Abstract: The fundamental unit of visual working memory (WM) has been debated for decades. WM could be object-based, such that capacity is set by the number of individuated objects, or feature-based, such that capacity is determined by the total number of feature values stored. The present work examined whether object- or feature-based models would best explain how multifeature objects (i.e., color/orientation or color/shape) are encoded into visual WM. If maximum capacity is limited by the number of individuated objects, then above-chance performance should be restricted to the same number of items as in a single-feature condition. By contrast, if the capacity is determined by independent storage resources for distinct features-without respect to the objects that contain those features-then successful storage of feature values could be distributed across a larger number of objects than when only a single feature is relevant. We conducted four experiments using a whole-report task in which subjects reported both features from every item in a six-item array. The crucial finding was that above-chance recall-for both single- and multifeatured objects-was restricted to the first three or four responses, while the later responses were best modeled as guesses. Thus, whole-report with multifeature objects reveals a distribution of recalled features that indicates an object-based limit on WM capacity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
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Citations
“Visual verbs”: Dynamic event types are extracted spontaneously during visual perception.
Huichao Ji,Brian J. Scholl +1 more
TL;DR: Researchers found that visual perception extracts dynamic event types, such as twisting or bouncing, spontaneously, even when task-irrelevant, and that these event types facilitate categorical perception and prediction of event outcomes.
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Lack of attention shift cost for features in visual working memory
Ruyi Liu,Lijing Guo,Xiaoshu Lin,Dan Nie,Piia Astikainen,Chaoxiong Ye +5 more
- 27 Mar 2024
TL;DR: Lack of attention shift cost for features in visual working memory. VWM performance for the refocused feature in double-cue trials is better than no/neutral-cue baseline but not different from single-cue trials, indicating the lack of attention shift cost for features in VWM.
Understanding the flexibility of working memory: Compositionality, generative processing, anchors and holistic representations
Brad Wyble,Joyce Tam,Ian Deal,Howard Bowman +3 more
Abstract: The typical conception of working memory is a mechanism to temporarily hold multiple discrete objects in service of other cognitive tasks in an item-based representation. In this paper, we expand the conventional idea that working memory represents objects into a more flexible framework that uses compositional and generative mechanisms to code and then re-code visual input according to task demands. Compositionality allows complex scenes or objects to be mentally decomposed into constituents that can be individually manipulated or recombined to form new representations. Generative processing allows purely conceptual information to be reconstructed in a format akin to visual sensory representations that can be manipulated and re-processed by perceptual mechanisms. Together, compositional and generative mechanisms would enable a wide range of cognitive functions including the basis of visual imagery. In our view, working memory items do not need to correspond to discrete objects, but could serve as pointers or anchors to clusters of features that form parts of objects, or alternatively, multiple objects could be encoded as one holistic item depending on the task. We conclude with a conceptual account of such a memory system that can build and re-use information by moving it between different levels of abstraction within a perceptual hierarchy. This model is linked to experimental results from the memory and visual imagery literatures that illustrate the flexibility of such a system for performing cognitive tasks.
Mixing and mingling in visual working memory: Inter-item competition is feature-specific during encoding and feature-general during maintenance
Janna Wennberg,John T. Serences +1 more
TL;DR: Visual working memory performance is influenced by feature-specific competition during encoding and feature-general competition during maintenance, suggesting that capacity limits arise from higher-order structures that integrate diverse feature-specific representations.
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