Memory deficit induced by overload

我们研究了由过载引起的视觉工作记忆（VWM）缺陷，发现VWM容量在记忆集大小、年龄和个体之间存在广泛的差异。在低记忆容量的年轻人和老年人中，当设定的大小远远超过VWM容量的限制时，观察到VWM中持有的物体数量显著减少，但在高记忆容量的个体中则没有。此外，通过增加VWM编码时间，这种缺陷在低能力的年轻人中得到缓解，而在低能力的老年人中没有得到缓解。因此，低容量个体很可能表现出过载导致的VWM容量下降，而衰老加剧了这种缺陷，以至于不能通过简单地增加编码时间来恢复。我们的研究结果挑战了VWM容量是固定和稳定的普遍假设，鼓励了对VWM容量受存储高分辨率对象表示的固定数量的不同插槽限制的严格观点的修正。

We investigated visual working memory (VWM) deficit induced by overload, and found wide variability in VWM capacity across memory set sizes, age, and individuals. A marked decrease in the number of objects held in VWM was observed in both younger and older adults with low memory capacity, but not among high-capacity individuals, when set size went well beyond the limits of VWM capacity. In addition, this deficit was alleviated among low-capacity younger adults, but not among low-capacity older adults, by increasing VWM encoding time. Thus, low-capacity individuals are likely to show decreases in VWM capacity induced by overload, and aging exacerbates this deficit such that it cannot be recovered by simply increasing encoding time. Our findings challenge the prevailing assumption that VWM capacity is fixed and stable, encouraging a revision to the strict view that VWM capacity is constrained by a fixed number of distinct slots in which high-resolution object representations are stored.