Psychophysical scaling reveals a unified theory of visual memory strength
Psychophysical scaling reveals a unified theory of visual memory strength
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DOI：
10.1038/s41562-020-00938-0
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发表时间：
2020-09-07
影响因子：
29.9
通讯作者：
Brady, Timothy F.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Schurgin, Mark W.;Wixted, John T.;Brady, Timothy F.
几乎所有的视觉记忆模型都隐含地假设记忆表征中的错误与刺激空间中的距离呈线性关系。在这里，我们表明，无论是记忆还是感知都没有适当地缩放刺激空间，相反，它们是基于一个变换的相似性表示，是非线性相关的刺激空间。这一结果对现存的视觉工作记忆模型的基本假设提出了质疑。一旦心理物理相似性被考虑在内，记忆的各个方面，已被认为是展示一个固定的工作记忆容量约三个或四个项目，并需要从根本上不同的代表性，在不同的刺激，任务和类型的记忆，可以吝啬地解释与单一的信号检测框架。这些结果对视觉记忆的研究具有重大意义，并导致对知觉、工作记忆和长期记忆之间关系的重大重新解释。Schurgin等人提出了一个视觉记忆模型，反对区分有多少项目被表示和它们被表示得有多精确，而赞成基于噪声通道中连续表示的观点。
Almost all models of visual memory implicitly assume that errors in mnemonic representations are linearly related to distance in stimulus space. Here we show that neither memory nor perception are appropriately scaled in stimulus space; instead, they are based on a transformed similarity representation that is nonlinearly related to stimulus space. This result calls into question a foundational assumption of extant models of visual working memory. Once psychophysical similarity is taken into account, aspects of memory that have been thought to demonstrate a fixed working memory capacity of around three or four items and to require fundamentally different representations-across different stimuli, tasks and types of memory-can be parsimoniously explained with a unitary signal detection framework. These results have substantial implications for the study of visual memory and lead to a substantial reinterpretation of the relationship between perception, working memory and long-term memory.Schurgin et al. propose a model of visual memory, arguing against a distinction between how many items are represented and how precisely they are represented, and in favour of a view based on continuous representations in noisy channels.