Work

The cost of accessing an object's feature stored in visual working memory

Year: 2010

Type: article

Abstract: The effects of accessing or retrieving information held in working memory are poorly understood compared to what we know about the nature of information storage in this limited-capacity memory system. Previous studies of object-based attention have often relied upon memory-demanding tasks, and this work could indicate that accessing a piece of information in visual working memory may have deleterious effects upon the other representations being maintained. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that accessing a feature of an object represented in visual working memory degrades the representations of the other stored objects' features. Our findings support this hypothesis and point to important new questions about the nature of effects resulting from accessing information stored in visual working memory.

Source: Visual Cognition

DOI: 10.1080/13506285.2010.521140

Authors: Geoffrey F. Woodman, Shaun P. Vecera

Institutions: Vanderbilt University, University of Iowa

Language: English

Topic: Visual perception and processing mechanisms

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Eye Institute

Award: Comparative electrophysiology: Visual event-related potentials and oscillations