Volume 9, Number 10, Article 7, Pages 1-11 doi:10.1167/9.10.7 http://journalofvision.org/9/10/7/ ISSN 1534-7362
The precision of visual working memory is set by allocation of a shared resource
Paul M. Bays
UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience & UCL Institute of Neurology,London, UK
[home] [e-mail]
Raquel F. G. Catalao
UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience & UCL Institute of Neurology,London, UK
[e-mail]
Masud Husain
UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience & UCL Institute of Neurology,London, UK
[home] [e-mail]
Abstract

The mechanisms underlying visual working memory have recently become controversial. One account proposes a small number of memory “slots,” each capable of storing a single visual object with fixed precision. A contrary view holds that working memory is a shared resource, with no upper limit on the number of items stored; instead, the more items that are held in memory, the less precisely each can be recalled. Recent findings from a color report task have been taken as crucial new evidence in favor of the slot model. However, while this task has previously been thought of as a simple test of memory for color, here we show that performance also critically depends on memory for location. When errors in memory are considered for both color and location, performance on this task is in fact well explained by the resource model. These results demonstrate that visual working memory consists of a common resource distributed dynamically across the visual scene, with no need to invoke an upper limit on the number of objects represented.

View full-text

History
Received July 3, 2009; published September 9, 2009
Citation
Bays, P. M., Catalao, R. F. G., & Husain, M. (2009). The precision of visual working memory is set by allocation of a shared resource. Journal of Vision, 9(10):7, 1-11, http://journalofvision.org/9/10/7/, doi:10.1167/9.10.7.
Keywords
memory, computational modeling, visual cognition
Downloads
238 Total.
 
Search
for articles that cite this paper
for related articles by these authors
for papers that cite this paper
Get citation






jov