Expertise for upright faces improves the precision but not the capacity of visual working memory

Lorenc, Elizabeth S.; Pratte, Michael S.; Angeloni, Christopher F.; Tong, Frank

doi:10.3758/s13414-014-0653-z

Cited by 41 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…The results were consistent with the effect being an increase in precision, in that the effect of recognisability was found for small (WC) but not large (CC) changes. This finding mirrors the perceptual expertise advantage for VSTM of faces (Curby and Gauthier 2007;Scolari et al 2008;Curby et al 2009;Lorenc et al 2014), but extends it across multiple object categories.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 66%

“…We also extend it to another measure of precision, obtained from modelling the distribution of responses in a continuous report paradigm. This confirmed that recognisable objects are remembered with greater precision but with no advantage in the number of items that can be retained, similar to an advantage seen for upright faces (Lorenc et al 2014). This advantage in precision may be explained by a wider representational space for recognisable objects (Scolari et al 2008;Brady et al 2016).This raised the question as to the neural mechanisms that support VSTM for complex objects and that underlie a behavioural precision advantage for recognisability.…”

Section: Greater Precision For Recognisable Complex Objects In Vstmsupporting

confidence: 55%

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The neural basis of precise visual short-term memory for complex recognisable objects

Veldsman

Mitchell

Cusack

2016

Preprint

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Recent evidence suggests that visual short-term memory (VSTM) capacity estimated using simple objects, such as colours and oriented bars, may not generalise well to more naturalistic stimuli. More visual detail can be stored in VSTM when complex, recognisable objects are maintained compared to simple objects. It is not yet known if it is recognisability that enhances memory precision, nor whether maintenance of recognisable objects is achieved with the same network of brain regions supporting maintenance of simple objects.We used a novel stimulus generation method to parametrically warp photographic images along a continuum, allowing separate estimation of the precision of memory representations and the number of items retained. The stimulus generation method was also designed to create unrecognisable, though perceptually matched, stimuli, to investigate the impact of recognisability on VSTM. We adapted the widely-used change detection and continuous report paradigms for use with complex, photographic images.Across three functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments, we demonstrated greater precision for recognisable objects in VSTM compared to unrecognisable objects. This clear behavioural advantage was not the result of recruitment of additional brain regions, or of stronger mean activity within the core network.Representational similarity analysis revealed greater variability across item repetitions in the representations of recognisable, compared to unrecognisable complex objects. We therefore propose that a richer range of neural representations support VSTM for complex recognisable objects.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 66%

Section: Greater Precision For Recognisable Complex Objects In Vstmsupporting

confidence: 55%

The neural basis of precise visual short-term memory for complex recognisable objects

Veldsman

Mitchell

Cusack

2016

Preprint

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“…Lorenc and colleagues (2014) use memory for faces to make this point. Their observers saw a sequence of faces, each in its own specific location and were then probed for one of those faces.…”

Section: Properties Of Working Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to the special issue on visual working memory

Wolfe

2014

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Objects are not represented individually in visual working memory (VWM), but in relation to the contextual information provided by other memorized objects. We studied whether the contextual information provided by the spatial configuration of all memorized objects is viewpoint-dependent. We ran two experiments asking participants to detect changes in locations between memory and probe for one object highlighted in the probe image. We manipulated the changes in viewpoint between memory and probe (Exp. 1: 0°, 30°, 60°; Exp. 2: 0°, 60°), as well as the spatial configuration visible in the probe image (Exp. 1: full configuration, partial configuration; Exp. 2: full configuration, no configuration). Location change detection was higher with the full spatial configuration than with the partial configuration or with no spatial configuration at viewpoint changes of 0°, thus replicating previous findings on the nonindependent representations of individual objects in VWM. Most importantly, the effect of spatial configurations decreased with increasing viewpoint changes, suggesting a viewpoint-dependent representation of contextual information in VWM. We discuss these findings within the context of this special issue, in particular whether research performed within the slots-versus-resources debate and research on the effects of contextual information might focus on two different storage systems within VWM.

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“…The authors took this as evidence that expertise enhances the precision of working memory representation but not capacity in terms of the number of "slots." The number of items represented should be independent of expertise, but unfamiliar items are represented less precisely than familiar ones (Lorenc et al, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual Working Memory of Chinese Characters and Expertise: The Expert’s Memory Advantage Is Based on Long-Term Knowledge of Visual Word Forms

Zimmer

Fischer

2020

Front. Psychol.

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People unfamiliar with Chinese characters show poorer visual working memory (VWM) performance for Chinese characters than do literates in Chinese. In a series of experiments, we investigated the reasons for this expertise advantage. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that the advantage of Chinese literates does not transfer to novel material. Experts had similar resolution as novices for material outside of their field of expertise, and the memory of novices and experts did not differ when detecting a big change, e.g., when a character's color was changed. Memorizing appears to function as a rather abstract representation of word forms because memory for characters' fonts was poor independently of expertise (Experiment 3), though still visual. Distractors that were highly similar conceptually did not increase memory errors, but visually similar distractors impaired memory (Experiment 4). We hypothesized that literates in Chinese represent characters in VWM as tokens of visual word forms made available by long-term memory. In Experiment 5, we provided novices with visual word form knowledge. Participants subsequently performed a change detection task with trained and novel characters in a functional magnetic resonance experiment. We analyzed set size-and trainingdependent effects in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and the visual word form area. VWM for trained characters was better than for novel characters. Neural activity increased with set size and at a slower rate for trained than for novel characters. All conditions approached the same maximum, but novel characters reached the maximum at a smaller set size than trained characters. The time course of the bold response depended on set size and knowledge status. Starting from the same initial maximum, neural activity at small set sizes returned to baseline more quickly for trained characters than for novel characters. Additionally, high performers showed generally more neural activity in the IPS than low performers. We conclude that experts' better performance in working memory (WM) is caused by the availability of visual long-term representations (word form types) that allow a sparse representation of the perceived stimuli and make even small changes big because they cause a type change that is easily detected.

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Expertise for upright faces improves the precision but not the capacity of visual working memory

Cited by 41 publications

References 47 publications

The neural basis of precise visual short-term memory for complex recognisable objects

The neural basis of precise visual short-term memory for complex recognisable objects

Introduction to the special issue on visual working memory

Visual Working Memory of Chinese Characters and Expertise: The Expert’s Memory Advantage Is Based on Long-Term Knowledge of Visual Word Forms

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