Effects of changing object identity on location working memory

Toh, Yi Ni; Sisk, Caitlin A.; Jiang, Yuhong

doi:10.3758/s13414-019-01738-z

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…This finding aligns with contemporary theories like Guided Search (Wolfe, 2020), which postulate that the processing of an array of items begins with a global analysis. This step, occurring preattentively, is likely to extract the global spatial configuration of the array (Alvarez & Oliva, 2008; Toh et al, 2020). As a result, the target is presumably encoded relative to the distractors.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sequence learning is surprisingly fragile in visual search.

Toh

Remington

Lee

2021

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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Extensive research has shown that people are sensitive to statistical regularities of visual stimuli, such as a repeated sequence of object locations. Such learning, however, has primarily occurred for objects presented in isolation. Here, we tested whether sequence learning also manifested in complex displays. Using variants of the serial reaction time task, we asked participants to report the screen quadrant of a letter T, whose location followed a 12-trial sequence that repeated 30 times over 360 trials. In different experiments, we manipulated the nature of distractors surrounding the target. The T could appear in isolation, as a color singleton among distractors with fixed or variable locations, or as a conjunction search target. Sequence learning-expressed as elevated response time when the learned sequence was disrupted-decreased as spatial noise increased. Learning was robust when the T appeared in isolation or when it was surrounded by distractors that did not change locations. It was reduced in feature search and eliminated in conjunction search. These findings suggest that target locations are coded in relation to concurrently presented distractors. Variability in distractor locations disrupts target location sequence learning, revealing a limit to people's ability to extract and use spatiotemporal regularities in complex environments. Public Significance StatementThis study shows that people can learn from a repeated sequence of object locations, such as those encountered when visiting the same supermarkets or websites, and can use the repetitions to speed up response. However, the study also uncovers a limitation to sequence learning, especially when the displays are cluttered with distracting information that frequently changes locations. Learning diminishes in complex displays involving visual search. The finding highlights the importance of considering visual clutter and spatial consistency when designing navigable space, websites, and other user interfaces.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sequence learning is surprisingly fragile in visual search.

Toh

Remington

Lee

2021

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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“…Given the methodological differences between this and the current study, it is hard to draw any conclusions. But it also important to note that improved performance may result in higher resolution (Rouault et al, 2018), and eventually identity information is often associated with a specific location (e.g., Toh et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Metacognitive Perspective of Visual Working Memory With Rich Complex Objects

2020

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Visual working memory (VWM) has been extensively studied in the context of memory capacity. However, less research has been devoted to the metacognitive processes involved in VWM. Most metacognitive studies of VWM studies tested simple, impoverished stimuli, whereas outside of the laboratory setting, we typically interact with meaningful, complex objects. Thus, the present study aimed to explore the extent to which people are able to monitor VWM of real-world objects that are more ecologically valid and further afford less inter-trial interference. Specifically, in three experiments, participants viewed a set of either four or six memory items, consisting of images of unique real-world objects that were not repeated throughout the experiment. Following the memory array, participants were asked to indicate where the probe item appeared (Experiment 1) whether it appeared at all (Experiment 2) or whether it appeared and what was its temporal order (Experiment 3). VWM monitoring was assessed by subjective confidence judgments regarding participants' objective performance. Similar to common metacognitive findings in other domains, we found that subjective judgments overestimated performance and underestimated errors, even for real-world, complex items held in VWM. These biases seem not to be task-specific as they were found in temporal, spatial, and identity VWM tasks. Yet, the results further showed that meaningful, real-world objects were better remembered than distorted items, and this memory advantage also translated to metacognitive measures.

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“…It effectively corrects for 'guessing' only when memory is always all-or-none, like the K value measure and standard correction for guessing. (5) Many researchers favor measures based on signal detection theory, like d' [Φ(hits) -Φ(false alarms)] (Benjamin, & Bjork, 2000;Brady, Alvarez, & Stormer, 2019;Brady, Shafer-Skelton, & Alvarez, 2017;Chubala, Guitard, Neath, Saint-Aubin, & Surprenant, 2020;Diana, Peterson, & Reder, 2004;Greene, Bahri, & Soto, 2010;Jiang, Lee, Asaad, & Remington, 2016;Johnson, Spencer, Luck, & Schoner, 2009;Lamont, Stewart, Williams, & Podd, 2005;Lee & Cho, 2019;Monti, Cooke, Watson, Voss, Kramer, & Cohen, 2015;Rajaram & Pereira-Pasarin, 2007;Sahakyan, Waldum, Benjamin, & Bickett, 2009;Schurgin & Brady, 2019;Toh, Sisk, & Jiang, 2020). Unlike threshold models of memory, signal detection models more reasonably posit that memory states are continuous rather than discrete, that is, some memories are stronger than others to varying degrees (e.g., Wickens, 2000).…”

Section: For Examplementioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring memory is harder than you think: How to avoid problematic measurement practices in memory research

Tf¹,

Mm²,

Williams³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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There is a crisis of measurement in memory research, with major implications for theory and practice. This crisis arises because of a critical complication present when measuring memory using the recognition memory task that dominates the study of working memory and long-term memory (“did you see this item? yes/no” or “did this item change? yes/no”). Such tasks give two measures of performance, the “hit rate” (how often you say you previously saw an item you actually did previously see) and the “false alarm rate” (how often you say you saw something you never saw). Yet what researchers want is one single, integrated measure of memory performance. Integrating the hit and false alarm rate into a single measure, however, requires a complex problem of counterfactual reasoning that depends on the (unknowable) distribution of underlying memory signals: when faced with two people differing in both hit rate and false alarm rate, the question of who had the better memory is really “who would have had more hits if they each had the same number of false alarms”. As a result of this difficulty, different literatures in memory research (e.g., visual working memory, eyewitness identification, picture memory, etc) have settled on a variety of distinct metrics to combine hit rates and false alarm rates (e.g., A’, corrected hit rate, percent correct, d’, diagnosticity ratios, K values, etc.). These metrics make different, contradictory assumptions about the distribution of latent memory signals, and all of their assumptions are frequently incorrect. Despite a large literature on how to properly measure memory performance, spanning decades, real-life decisions are often made using these metrics, even when they subsequently turn out to be wrong when memory is studied with better measures. We suggest that in order for the psychology and neuroscience of memory to become a cumulative, theory-driven science, more attention must be given to measurement issues. We make a concrete suggestion: the default memory task should change from old/new (“did you see this item’?”) to forced-choice (“which of these two items did you see?”). In situations where old/new variants are preferred (e.g., eyewitness identification; theoretical investigations of the nature of memory decisions), receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis should always be performed.

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Effects of changing object identity on location working memory

Cited by 9 publications

References 41 publications

Sequence learning is surprisingly fragile in visual search.

Sequence learning is surprisingly fragile in visual search.

A Metacognitive Perspective of Visual Working Memory With Rich Complex Objects

Measuring memory is harder than you think: How to avoid problematic measurement practices in memory research

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