Behavioral decoding of working memory items inside and outside the focus of attention

Mallett, Remington; Lewis-Peacock, Jarrod A.

doi:10.1111/nyas.13647

Cited by 39 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…However, in these previous studies, each display was to be judged separately before succeeding to the next, which may have enabled participants to periodically refocus on the WM information. Our challenging sequential integration task likely precluded such endogenous reorienting and forced the spatial WM information more persistently into unattendance see also 45 . Consistently, concurrent WM maintenance did not impair overall psychometric sensitivity see also 46 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Concurrent visual working memory bias in sequential integration of approximate number

Kang

Spitzer

2020

Preprint

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Previous work has shown bidirectional crosstalk between Working Memory (WM) and perception such that the contents of WM can alter what we perceive and vice versa. However, it remains unclear to what extent such interactions reflect changes in sensory and mnemonic signals and/or biases in their decisional evaluation and subjective reporting. Here, using an extended visuospatial number integration task, we report evidence for both sensory and decisional WM-perception interactions and show that they appear to be functionally independent. Spatiotemporally resolved psychometrics during concurrent WM maintenance disclosed (i) a brief visuospatial gain modulation after attending the WM information and (ii) categorical choice biases, in both perceptual and mnemonic decisions, after prolonged unattended storage. The findings highlight a role of decisional processing in behaviorally relevant WM-perception interactions and support a view that attended and unattended WM states may rely on representation at different levels of abstraction.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Concurrent visual working memory bias in sequential integration of approximate number

Kang

Spitzer

2020

Preprint

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“…For example, van Moorselaar and colleagues (2014) did not find attentional guidance at memory set sizes above one-and reported that the absence of the effect could not be explained by imprecise working memory representations or differences in an individual's working memory capacity (see also their successful replication: Frătescu et al, 2019). However, when one of the memory items was retro-cued, they found that the cued item guided attention as effectively as when only a single item was maintained (see also Mallett & Lewis-Peacock, 2018). This result led them to conclude that when multiple items are maintained in working memory only one, uniquely prioritized item can guide attention (see also Downing & Dodds, 2004;Houtkamp & Roelfsema, 2006;Peters, Goebel, & Roelfsema, 2009;Olivers et al, 2011).…”

Section: Do Multiple Working Memory Items Guide Attention Simultaneoumentioning

confidence: 98%

Guidance of attention by working memory is a matter of representational fidelity

Williams¹,

Tf²,

Vs³

2019

Preprint

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Previous research shows that a single visual working memory item can guide visual attention towards objects that match the feature held in mind, but the results are mixed as to whether this attentional guidance occurs for multiple concurrently active working memory items or not. Evidence in favor of a single-item guidance account has been taken as evidence for the structure of working memory comprising multiple distinct states where one item is prioritized over all others by being placed within a special focus of attention. The present study was designed to test attentional guidance effects for single and multiple working memory items, and to test the hypothesis that there are special distinct states in working memory. To do so, we asked participants to remember one or two colors, then perform a visual search task, and then report the items held in mind. We demonstrate that a single working memory item robustly biases attention towards items that match the color maintained in working memory during visual search (Exp. 1). Although we found reliable guidance when participants remembered two items, we show that these effects can largely be explained by a single item guiding attention on a proportion of trials (Exp. 2). Next, by precisely measuring memory for individual items we show that items naturally vary in their representational fidelity, and that only the item with the strongest representation guides attention (Exp. 3). Importantly, we demonstrate that no special focus of attention is necessary to explain these single-item guidance effects but that natural variation in the fidelity between items — which arises through independent noise — can account for the effects (Exp. 4). These findings challenge current models of working memory guidance and propose a simpler account for how working memory and attention interact: through natural variation in the representational fidelity of memories, one item tends to be the dominant item guiding attention on any individual trial.

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“…When an item becomes permanently irrelevant, it neurally deactivates and no longer casts the same shadow on ongoing maintenance or task performance. That is, information that becomes completely irrelevant (and thus a candidate for permanent removal) is no longer neurally detectable with exogenous stimulation as is temporarily irrelevant information, it is no longer behaviorally detectable with attentional biases on visual search tasks, and it imposes less intrusion cost on memory performance as did temporarily removed information …”

Section: The Mechanisms Of Removalmentioning

confidence: 99%

The removal of information from working memory

Lewis-Peacock

Kessler

Oberauer

2018

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

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128

104

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What happens to goal‐relevant information in working memory after it is no longer needed? Here, we review evidence for a selective removal process that operates on outdated information to limit working memory load and hence facilitates the maintenance of goal‐relevant information. Removal alters the representations of irrelevant content so as to reduce access to it, thereby improving access to the remaining relevant content and also facilitating the encoding of new information. Both behavioral and neural evidence support the existence of a removal process that is separate from forgetting due to decay or interference. We discuss the potential mechanisms involved in removal and characterize the time course and duration of the process. In doing so, we propose the existence of two forms of removal: one is temporary, and reversible, which modifies working memory content without impacting content‐to‐context bindings, and another is permanent, which unbinds the content from its context in working memory (without necessarily impacting long‐term forgetting). Finally, we discuss limitations on removal and prescribe conditions for evaluating evidence for or against this process.

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Behavioral decoding of working memory items inside and outside the focus of attention

Cited by 39 publications

References 78 publications

Concurrent visual working memory bias in sequential integration of approximate number

Concurrent visual working memory bias in sequential integration of approximate number

Guidance of attention by working memory is a matter of representational fidelity

The removal of information from working memory

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