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Gupta P, Vogelsang M, Vogelsang L, Shah P, Gilad-Gutnick S, Sinha P. The influence of semantics on long-term visual memory capacity in children and adults. BRITISH JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2024. [PMID: 38859629 DOI: 10.1111/bjdp.12498] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/15/2023] [Revised: 04/17/2024] [Accepted: 04/29/2024] [Indexed: 06/12/2024]
Abstract
Human visual memory capacity has a rapid developmental progression. Here we examine whether image semantics modulate this progression. We assessed the performance of children (6-14 years) and young adults (19-36 years) on a visual memory task using real-world (or meaningful) as well as abstract image sets, which were matched in low-level image attributes. For real images, we find comparable performance across the two age groups, consistent with previously reported results. However, for abstract images, we find a clear age-related difference indicating greater reliance of children's memory processes on semantics, suggesting that strategies for encoding abstract patterns keep improving even into late childhood. We complemented these studies with computational experiments designed to examine the role of increasing experience with real-world images on real and abstract image encoding, to examine whether the observed age-related differences, as well as the general privilege of real over abstract images, can emerge directly through experience with meaningful images. Our results provide support for this possibility and set the stage for a finer-grained investigation of the timeline along which children's memory capacity for abstract images reaches adult levels.
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Affiliation(s)
- Priti Gupta
- Amarnath and Shashi Khosla School of Information Technology, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India
- Project Prakash, Dr Shroff's Charity Eye Hospital, New Delhi, India
- Cognitive Science Programme, Dayalbagh Educational Institute, Agra, India
| | - Marin Vogelsang
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Lukas Vogelsang
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Pragya Shah
- Project Prakash, Dr Shroff's Charity Eye Hospital, New Delhi, India
| | - Sharon Gilad-Gutnick
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Pawan Sinha
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
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Bays PM, Schneegans S, Ma WJ, Brady TF. Representation and computation in visual working memory. Nat Hum Behav 2024; 8:1016-1034. [PMID: 38849647 DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-01871-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2022] [Accepted: 03/22/2024] [Indexed: 06/09/2024]
Abstract
The ability to sustain internal representations of the sensory environment beyond immediate perception is a fundamental requirement of cognitive processing. In recent years, debates regarding the capacity and fidelity of the working memory (WM) system have advanced our understanding of the nature of these representations. In particular, there is growing recognition that WM representations are not merely imperfect copies of a perceived object or event. New experimental tools have revealed that observers possess richer information about the uncertainty in their memories and take advantage of environmental regularities to use limited memory resources optimally. Meanwhile, computational models of visuospatial WM formulated at different levels of implementation have converged on common principles relating capacity to variability and uncertainty. Here we review recent research on human WM from a computational perspective, including the neural mechanisms that support it.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paul M Bays
- Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | | | - Wei Ji Ma
- Center for Neural Science and Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Timothy F Brady
- Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
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Brady TF, Störmer VS. Comparing memory capacity across stimuli requires maximally dissimilar foils: Using deep convolutional neural networks to understand visual working memory capacity for real-world objects. Mem Cognit 2024; 52:595-609. [PMID: 37973770 DOI: 10.3758/s13421-023-01485-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 10/17/2023] [Indexed: 11/19/2023]
Abstract
The capacity of visual working and visual long-term memory plays a critical role in theories of cognitive architecture and the relationship between memory and other cognitive systems. Here, we argue that before asking the question of how capacity varies across different stimuli or what the upper bound of capacity is for a given memory system, it is necessary to establish a methodology that allows a fair comparison between distinct stimulus sets and conditions. One of the most important factors determining performance in a memory task is target/foil dissimilarity. We argue that only by maximizing the dissimilarity of the target and foil in each stimulus set can we provide a fair basis for memory comparisons between stimuli. In the current work we focus on a way to pick such foils objectively for complex, meaningful real-world objects by using deep convolutional neural networks, and we validate this using both memory tests and similarity metrics. Using this method, we then provide evidence that there is a greater capacity for real-world objects relative to simple colors in visual working memory; critically, we also show that this difference can be reduced or eliminated when non-comparable foils are used, potentially explaining why previous work has not always found such a difference. Our study thus demonstrates that working memory capacity depends on the type of information that is remembered and that assessing capacity depends critically on foil dissimilarity, especially when comparing memory performance and other cognitive systems across different stimulus sets.
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Affiliation(s)
- Timothy F Brady
- Department of Psychology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA.
| | - Viola S Störmer
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
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Bobrowicz K, Weber A, Greiff S. The successful use of a search strategy improves with visuospatial working memory in 2- to 4.5-year-olds. J Exp Child Psychol 2024; 238:105786. [PMID: 37820541 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105786] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/07/2023] [Revised: 09/07/2023] [Accepted: 09/08/2023] [Indexed: 10/13/2023]
Abstract
Using spatial cues such as shape, orientation, and pattern aids visuospatial working memory because it allows strategies that reduce the load on this cognitive resource. One such strategy, namely taking advantage of patterned spatial distributions, remains understudied to date. This strategy demands keeping track of already-searched locations and excluding them from further search and so correlates with visuospatial working memory. The use of such strategies should, in principle, develop in early childhood, but because most studies focus on chunking, the development of other strategies reducing the load on working memory is understudied in young children. Therefore, in this study we tested whether children aged 2 to 4.5 years (N = 97) could take advantage of spatial cues in their search and whether this ability correlated with their age, verbal ability, and visuospatial working memory. The results showed that the ability to use a patterned spatial distribution (searching a row of locations from one side to the other instead of a random search) significantly improved with visuospatial working memory but not with age or verbal ability. These results suggest that visuospatial abilities may rapidly develop from 2 to 4.5 years of age, and given their impact on later mathematic achievement, demand increased attention in cognitive developmental research and early childhood education.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katarzyna Bobrowicz
- Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Luxembourg, Campus Belval, L-4365 Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg; Department of Psychology, Lund University, 221 00 Lund, Sweden.
| | - Anke Weber
- Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Luxembourg, Campus Belval, L-4365 Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
| | - Samuel Greiff
- Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Luxembourg, Campus Belval, L-4365 Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
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Yoo AH, Keglovits H, Collins AGE. Lowered inter-stimulus discriminability hurts incremental contributions to learning. COGNITIVE, AFFECTIVE & BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE 2023; 23:1346-1364. [PMID: 37656373 PMCID: PMC10545593 DOI: 10.3758/s13415-023-01104-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 04/13/2023] [Indexed: 09/02/2023]
Abstract
How does the similarity between stimuli affect our ability to learn appropriate response associations for them? In typical laboratory experiments learning is investigated under somewhat ideal circumstances, where stimuli are easily discriminable. This is not representative of most real-life learning, where overlapping "stimuli" can result in different "rewards" and may be learned simultaneously (e.g., you may learn over repeated interactions that a specific dog is friendly, but that a very similar looking one isn't). With two experiments, we test how humans learn in three stimulus conditions: one "best case" condition in which stimuli have idealized and highly discriminable visual and semantic representations, and two in which stimuli have overlapping representations, making them less discriminable. We find that, unsurprisingly, decreasing stimuli discriminability decreases performance. We develop computational models to test different hypotheses about how reinforcement learning (RL) and working memory (WM) processes are affected by different stimulus conditions. Our results replicate earlier studies demonstrating the importance of both processes to capture behavior. However, our results extend previous studies by demonstrating that RL, and not WM, is affected by stimulus distinctness: people learn slower and have higher across-stimulus value confusion at decision when stimuli are more similar to each other. These results illustrate strong effects of stimulus type on learning and demonstrate the importance of considering parallel contributions of different cognitive processes when studying behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aspen H Yoo
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, USA
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, USA
| | - Haley Keglovits
- Department of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, USA
| | - Anne G E Collins
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
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Sasin E, Markov Y, Fougnie D. Meaningful objects avoid attribute amnesia due to incidental long-term memories. Sci Rep 2023; 13:14464. [PMID: 37660090 PMCID: PMC10475071 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-41642-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/02/2023] [Accepted: 08/29/2023] [Indexed: 09/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Attribute amnesia describes the failure to unexpectedly report the attribute of an attended stimulus, likely reflecting a lack of working memory consolidation. Previous studies have shown that unique meaningful objects are immune to attribute amnesia. However, these studies used highly dissimilar foils to test memory, raising the possibility that good performance at the surprise test was based on an imprecise (gist-like) form of long-term memory. In Experiment 1, we explored whether a more sensitive memory test would reveal attribute amnesia in meaningful objects. We used a four-alternative-forced-choice test with foils having mis-matched exemplar (e.g., apple pie/pumpkin pie) and/or state (e.g., cut/full) information. Errors indicated intact exemplar, but not state information. Thus, meaningful objects are vulnerable to attribute amnesia under the right conditions. In Experiments 2A-2D, we manipulated the familiarity signals of test items by introducing a critical object as a pre-surprise target. In the surprise trial, this critical item matched one of the foil choices. Participants selected the critical object more often than other items. By demonstrating that familiarity influences responses in this paradigm, we suggest that meaningful objects are not immune to attribute amnesia but instead side-step the effects of attribute amnesia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Edyta Sasin
- Department of Psychology, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
| | - Yuri Markov
- Department of Psychology, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - Daryl Fougnie
- Department of Psychology, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE
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Race E, Tobin H, Verfaellie M. Leveraging Prior Knowledge to Support Short-term Memory: Exploring the Role of the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex. J Cogn Neurosci 2023; 35:681-691. [PMID: 36638229 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01965] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/15/2023]
Abstract
It is well established that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) plays a critical role in memory consolidation and the retrieval of remote long-term memories. Recent evidence suggests that the vmPFC also supports rapid neocortical learning and consolidation over shorter timescales, particularly when novel events align with stored knowledge. One mechanism by which the vmPFC has been proposed to support this learning is by integrating congruent information into existing neocortical knowledge during memory encoding. An important outstanding question is whether the vmPFC also plays a critical role in linking congruent information with existing knowledge before storage in long-term memory. The current study investigated this question by testing whether lesions to the vmPFC disrupt the ability to leverage stored knowledge in support of short-term memory. Specifically, we investigated the visuospatial bootstrapping effect, the phenomenon whereby immediate verbal recall of visually presented stimuli is better when stimuli appear in a familiar visuospatial array that is congruent with prior knowledge compared with an unfamiliar visuospatial array. We found that the overall magnitude of the bootstrapping effect did not differ between patients with vmPFC lesions and controls. However, a reliable bootstrapping effect was not present in the patient group alone. Post hoc analysis of individual patient performance revealed that the bootstrapping effect did not differ from controls in nine patients but was reduced in two patients. Although mixed, these results suggest that vmPFC lesions do not uniformly disrupt the ability to leverage stored knowledge in support of short-term memory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elizabeth Race
- Tufts University, Medford, MA.,VA Boston Healthcare System, MA
| | - Hope Tobin
- Tufts University, Medford, MA.,VA Boston Healthcare System, MA
| | - Mieke Verfaellie
- VA Boston Healthcare System, MA.,Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine, MA
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How does play foster development? A new executive function perspective. DEVELOPMENTAL REVIEW 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.dr.2022.101064] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
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The role of motion in visual working memory for dynamic stimuli: More lagged but more precise representations of moving objects. Atten Percept Psychophys 2023:10.3758/s13414-022-02635-8. [PMID: 36600155 DOI: 10.3758/s13414-022-02635-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/06/2022] [Indexed: 01/05/2023]
Abstract
While most visual working memory studies use static stimuli with unchanging features, objects in the real world are often dynamic, introducing significant differences in the surface feature information hitting the retina from the same object over time (e.g., changes in orientation, lighting, shadows). Previous research on dynamic stimuli has shown that change detection is improved if objects obey rules of physical motion, but it is unclear how memory for visual features interacts with object motion. In the current study, we investigated whether object motion facilitates greater temporal integration of continuously changing surface feature information. In a series of experiments, participants were asked to report the final color of continuously changing colored dots that were either moving or stationary on the screen. We found that the reported colors "lagged behind" the physical states of the dots when they were in motion. We also observed that the precision of memory responses was significantly higher for stimuli in the moving condition compared to the stationary condition. Together, these findings suggest that memory representation is improved - but lagged - for moving objects, consistent with the idea that object motion may facilitate integration of object information over longer intervals.
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Wang L, Xie T, Ma H, Xu M, Xie X. Subject-performed task effect on working memory performance in children with autism spectrum disorder. Autism Res 2022; 15:1698-1709. [PMID: 35298088 DOI: 10.1002/aur.2710] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/13/2021] [Revised: 02/25/2022] [Accepted: 03/08/2022] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Abstract
A previous study found that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have better recall when they perform instructions (subject-performed task [SPT]) than when they passively hear instructions (verbal task [VT]) in a working memory task for instructions, an effect that is called the SPT effect. This study explored whether the SPT effect exhibited by ASD children is caused by the movement component or by processing materials twice. More importantly, this study explored whether intelligence influences the SPT effect exhibited by ASD children. ASD children with three levels of intelligence (N = 56) and a control group, children with intellectual disability (ID) who had low intelligence but did not have ASD (N = 21), were asked to perform working memory tasks for instructions under VT, SPT and repeated (hearing the instruction twice) conditions. No significant difference in performance was observed between the VT and repeated conditions, regardless of the child's level of intelligence. ASD children with lower-middle intelligence exhibited a smaller SPT effect than ASD children with upper-middle intelligence. Critically, while ASD children with low intelligence did not exhibit the SPT effect, an ID group with equivalent low intelligence did show this effect. Therefore, these results show that the SPT effect for ASD children is caused by the movement component and is uniquely associated with a certain level of intelligence, namely, lower middle and higher levels of intelligence. LAY SUMMARY: In ASD children, the benefit of physically performing instructions for working memory performance is uniquely associated with a certain level of intelligence. Only ASD children with lower-middle intelligence (and higher) benefit from physically performing instructions, and higher intelligence increases this benefit; ASD children with low intelligence do not show this benefit. This benefit in ASD children is attributed to the additional motoric code generated by physical performance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lijuan Wang
- School of Psychology, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China
| | - Tingting Xie
- School of Psychology, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China
| | - Huan Ma
- School of Psychology, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China
| | - Miao Xu
- No. 6 Hospital of Changchun, Changchun, China
| | - Xiaochun Xie
- School of Psychology, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China
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