Something from (almost) nothing: buildup of object memory from forgettable single fixations

The effects of viewing by scrolling on a small screen on the encoding of objects into visual long-term memory

The perception of an image obtained by scrolling through a small screen can differ from the typical perception of a wide visual field in a stable environment. However, we do not fully understand image perception by scrolling on a small screen based on psychological knowledge of visual perception and cognition of images. This study investigated how screen size limitations and image shifts caused by scrolling affect image encoding in visual long-term memory. Participants explored the stimulus images under three conditions. Under the scrolling condition, they explored the image through a small screen. Under the moving-window condition, they explored the image by moving the screen over a masked image; this is similar to looking through a moving peephole. Under the no-window condition, participants were able to view the entire image simultaneously. Each stimulus comprised 12 objects. After 1 h, the samples were tested for object recognition. Consequently, the memory retention rate was higher in the scrolling and moving-window conditions than in the no-window condition, and no difference was observed between the scrolling and moving-window conditions. The time required by participants to explore the stimulus was shorter under the no-window condition. Thus, encoding efficiency (i.e., the rate of encoding information into memory in a unit of time) did not differ among the three conditions. An analysis of the scan trace of the scrolling and window movements in relation to the image revealed differences between the scrolling and moving-window conditions in terms of the scan's dynamic features. Moreover, a negative correlation was observed between the memory retention rate and image-scrolling speed. We conclude that perceiving images by scrolling on a small screen enables better memory retention than that obtained through whole-image viewing if the viewing time is not limited. We suggest that viewing through a small screen is not necessarily disadvantageous for memory encoding efficiency depending on the presentation mode, and the results show that participants who scrolled fast tended to have worse memory retention. These findings can impact school education and thus suggest that the use of mobile devices in learning has some merit from the viewpoint of cognitive psychology.

Hebbian, correlational learning provides a memory-less mechanism for Statistical Learning irrespective of implementational choices: Reply to Tovar and Westermann (2022)

Statistical learning relies on detecting the frequency of co-occurrences of items and has been proposed to be crucial for a variety of learning problems, notably to learn and memorize words from fluent speech. Endress and Johnson (2021) (hereafter EJ) recently showed that such results can be explained based on simple memory-less correlational learning mechanisms such as Hebbian Learning. Tovar and Westermann (2022) (hereafter TW) reproduced these results with a different Hebbian model. We show that the main differences between the models are whether temporal decay acts on both the connection weights and the activations (in TW) or only on the activations (in EJ), and whether interference affects weights (in TW) or activations (in EJ). Given that weights and activations are linked through the Hebbian learning rule, the networks behave similarly. However, in contrast to TW, we do not believe that neurophysiological data are relevant to adjudicate between abstract psychological models with little biological detail. Taken together, both models show that different memory-less correlational learning mechanisms provide a parsimonious account of Statistical Learning results. They are consistent with evidence that Statistical Learning might not allow learners to learn and retain words, and Statistical Learning might support predictive processing instead.

Memory and Proactive Interference for spatially distributed items

Our ability to briefly retain information is often limited. Proactive Interference (PI) might contribute to these limitations (e.g., when items in recognition tests are difficult to reject after having appeared recently). In visual Working Memory (WM), spatial information might protect WM against PI, especially if encoding items together with their spatial locations makes item-location combinations less confusable than simple items without a spatial component. Here, I ask (1) if PI is observed for spatially distributed items, (2) if it arises among simple items or among item-location combinations, and (3) if spatial information affects PI at all. I show that, contrary to views that spatial information protects against PI, PI is reliably observed for spatially distributed items except when it is weak. PI mostly reflects items that appear recently or frequently as memory items, while occurrences as test items play a smaller role, presumably because their temporal context is easier to encode. Through mathematical modeling, I then show that interference occurs among simple items rather than item-location combinations. Finally, to understand the effects of spatial information, I separate the effects of (a) the presence and (b) the predictiveness of spatial information on memory and its susceptibility to PI. Memory is impaired when items are spatially distributed, but, depending on the analysis, unaffected by the predictiveness of spatial information. In contrast, the susceptibility to PI is unaffected by either manipulation. Visual memory is thus impaired by PI for spatially distributed items due to interference from recent memory items (rather than test items or item-location combinations).

Evidence flowers: An innovative, visual method of presenting "best evidence" summaries to health professional and lay audiences

BACKGROUND & AIMS

Barriers to dissemination and engagement with evidence pose a threat to implementing evidence-based medicine. Understanding, retention, and recall can be enhanced by visual presentation of information. The aim of this exploratory research was to develop and evaluate the accessibility and acceptability of visual summaries for presenting evidence syntheses with multiple exposures or outcomes to professional and lay audiences.

METHODS

"Evidence flowers" were developed as a visual method of presenting data from 4 case scenarios: 2 complex evidence syntheses with multiple outcomes, Cochrane reviews, and clinical guidelines. Petals of evidence flowers were coloured according to the GRADE evidence rating system to display key findings and recommendations from the evidence summaries. Application of evidence flowers was observed during stakeholder workshops. Evaluation and feedback were conducted via questionnaires and informal interviews.

RESULTS

Feedback from stakeholders on the evidence flowers collected from workshops, questionnaires, and interviews was encouraging and helpful for refining the design of the flowers. Comments were made on the content and design of the flowers, as well as the usability and potential for displaying different types of evidence.

CONCLUSIONS

Evidence flowers are a novel and visually stimulating method for presenting research evidence from evidence syntheses with multiple exposures or outcomes, Cochrane reviews, and clinical guidelines. To promote access and engagement with research evidence, evidence flowers may be used in conjunction with other evidence synthesis products, such as (lay) summaries, evidence inventories, rapid reviews, and clinical guidelines. Additional research on potential adaptations and applications of the evidence flowers may further bridge the gap between research evidence and clinical practice.

The cost of proactive interference is constant across presentation conditions

Proactive interference (PI) severely constrains how many items people can remember. For example, Endress and Potter (2014a) presented participants with sequences of everyday objects at 250ms/picture, followed by a yes/no recognition test. They manipulated PI by either using new images on every trial in the unique condition (thus minimizing PI among items), or by re-using images from a limited pool for all trials in the repeated condition (thus maximizing PI among items). In the low-PI unique condition, the probability of remembering an item was essentially independent of the number of memory items, showing no clear memory limitations; more traditional working memory-like memory limitations appeared only in the high-PI repeated condition. Here, we ask whether the effects of PI are modulated by the availability of long-term memory (LTM) and verbal resources. Participants viewed sequences of 21 images, followed by a yes/no recognition test. Items were presented either quickly (250ms/image) or sufficiently slowly (1500ms/image) to produce LTM representations, either with or without verbal suppression. Across conditions, participants performed better in the unique than in the repeated condition, and better for slow than for fast presentations. In contrast, verbal suppression impaired performance only with slow presentations. The relative cost of PI was remarkably constant across conditions: relative to the unique condition, performance in the repeated condition was about 15% lower in all conditions. The cost of PI thus seems to be a function of the relative strength or recency of target items and interfering items, but relatively insensitive to other experimental manipulations.

Linguistics, cognitive psychology, and the Now-or-Never bottleneck

Christiansen & Chater (C&C)'s key premise is that “if linguistic information is not processed rapidly, that information is lost for good” (sect. 1, para. 1). From this “Now-or-Never bottleneck” (NNB), C&C derive “wide-reaching and fundamental implications for language processing, acquisition and change as well as for the structure of language itself” (sect. 2, para. 10). We question both the premise and the consequentiality of its purported implications.

Introduction to the special issue on visual working memory

Visual working memory is a volatile, limited-capacity memory that appears to play an important role in our impression of a visual world that is continuous in time. It also mediates between the contents of the mind and the contents of that visual world. Research on visual working memory has become increasingly prominent in recent years. The articles in this special issue of Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics describe new empirical findings and theoretical understandings of the topic.