A1 Journal article (refereed)
Limitations of concurrently representing objects within view and in visual working memory (2020)

Liang, T., Cheng, Z., Hu, W., Ye, C., Zhang, J., & Liu, Q. (2020). Limitations of concurrently representing objects within view and in visual working memory. Scientific Reports, 10, Article 5351. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-62164-y

JYU authors or editors

Publication details

All authors or editors: Liang, Tengfei; Cheng, Zijian; Hu, Wenjing; Ye, Chaoxiong; Zhang, Jiafeng; Liu, Qiang

Journal or series: Scientific Reports

eISSN: 2045-2322

Publication year: 2020

Volume: 10

Article number: 5351

Publisher: Nature Publishing Group

Publication country: United Kingdom

Publication language: English

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-62164-y

Publication open access: Openly available

Publication channel open access: Open Access channel

Publication is parallel published (JYX): https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/68470

Abstract

Representing visibly present stimuli is as limited in capacity as representing invisible stimuli in visual working memory (WM). In this study, we explored whether concurrently representing stimuli within view affects representing objects in visual WM, and if so, whether this effect is modulated by the storage states (active and silent state) of memory contents? In experiment 1, participants were asked to perform the change-detect task in a simultaneous-representing condition in which WM content and the continuously-visible stimuli in view were simultaneously represented, as well as a baseline condition in which only the representations of visual WM content were maintained. The results showed that the representations in visual WM would be impaired when the continuously-visible stimuli in view were concurrently represented, revealed by the reduced CDA amplitude and the lower behavior performance. In experiment 2, a dual-serial retro-cue paradigm was adopted to guide participants to maintain memory items in two different storage states, and the results revealed that simultaneously representing the continuously-visible stimuli and the WM content would only impair the WM representations in the active state. These evidences demonstrated that only the visual WM representations that were maintained in the active state would definitely share the limited resources with the representations of continuously-visible information, and further supported the dissociation between the active state and silent state of visual WM storage.

Keywords: perception (activity); stimuli (role related to effect); visual memory; working memory

Contributing organizations

Ministry reporting: Yes

Reporting Year: 2020

JUFO rating: 1