Greater Visual Working Memory Capacity for Visually Matched Stimuli When They Are Perceived as Meaningful
Greater Visual Working Memory Capacity for Visually Matched Stimuli When They Are Perceived as Meaningful
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DOI：
10.1162/jocn_a_01693
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发表时间：
2021-05-01
影响因子：
3.2
通讯作者：
Brady, Timothy F.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Asp, Isabel E.;Stormer, Viola S.;Brady, Timothy F.
几乎所有的视觉工作记忆模型——在活动状态下保存视觉信息的认知系统——都假设它有一个固定的容量：一些模型提出三到四个对象的限制，而另一些模型提出每个基本视觉特征都有一个固定的资源池。然而，最近的研究结果表明，对现实世界中的物体的记忆能力有所提高。是什么支撑着这些容量的增长？在控制视觉复杂性和直接评估工作记忆主动成分的情况下，研究刺激的意义性是否会影响工作记忆容量。参与者记住了模糊的刺激，这些刺激可能被视为一张脸，也可能被视为无意义的形状。当记忆显示包含更多有意义的刺激时，参与者有更高的表现和增加的神经延迟活动。重要的是，通过询问参与者是否将刺激视为人脸，我们还表明，这些视觉工作记忆容量的增加和额外神经资源的募集是由于对刺激的主观感知，因此不能由刺激的物理特性驱动。总的来说，这表明视觉工作记忆的主动存储能力不是固定的，但更有意义的刺激会吸收额外的工作记忆资源，从而使它们被更好地记住。
Almost all models of visual working memory-the cognitive system that holds visual information in an active state-assume it has a fixed capacity: Some models propose a limit of three to four objects, where others propose there is a fixed pool of resources for each basic visual feature. Recent findings, however, suggest that memory performance is improved for real-world objects. What supports these increases in capacity? Here, we test whether the meaningfulness of a stimulus alone influences working memory capacity while controlling for visual complexity and directly assessing the active component of working memory using EEG. Participants remembered ambiguous stimuli that could either be perceived as a face or as meaningless shapes. Participants had higher performance and increased neural delay activity when the memory display consisted of more meaningful stimuli. Critically, by asking participants whether they perceived the stimuli as a face or not, we also show that these increases in visual working memory capacity and recruitment of additional neural resources are because of the subjective perception of the stimulus and thus cannot be driven by physical properties of the stimulus. Broadly, this suggests that the capacity for active storage in visual working memory is not fixed but that more meaningful stimuli recruit additional working memory resources, allowing them to be better remembered.