Visual working memory directly alters perception - Nature

Visual working memory (VWM), the ability to temporarily maintain and manipulate information, underlies a variety of critical high-level ... Skiptomaincontent Thankyouforvisitingnature.com.YouareusingabrowserversionwithlimitedsupportforCSS.Toobtain thebestexperience,werecommendyouuseamoreuptodatebrowser(orturnoffcompatibilitymodein InternetExplorer).Inthemeantime,toensurecontinuedsupport,wearedisplayingthesitewithoutstyles andJavaScript. Advertisement nature naturehumanbehaviour letters article Subjects AttentionPerceptionWorkingmemory AbstractVisualworkingmemory(VWM),theabilitytotemporarilymaintainandmanipulateinformation,underliesavarietyofcriticalhigh-levelbehavioursfromdirectingattention1,2,3,4tomakingcomplexdecisions5.Hereweshowthatitsimpactextendstoeventhemostbasiclevelsofperceptualprocessing,directlyinteractingwithandevendistortingthephysicalappearanceofvisualfeatures.ThisinterferenceresultsfromandcanbepredictedbytherecruitmentofposteriorperceptualcorticestomaintaininformationinVWM6,7,8,9,whichcausesanoverlapwiththeneuronalpopulationssupportingperceptualprocessing10,11,12,13,14,15.Acrossthreesetsofexperiments,wedemonstratedbidirectionalinterferencebetweenVWMandlow-levelperception.Specifically,forbothmaintainedcoloursandorientations,presentingadistractorcreatedbiasinVWMrepresentationdependingonthesimilaritybetweenincomingandmaintainedinformation,consistentwiththeknowntuningcurvesforthesefeatures.Moreover,holdinganiteminminddirectlyalteredtheappearanceofnewstimuli,demonstratedbychangesinpsychophysicaldiscriminationthresholds.Thus,asaconsequenceofsharingtheearlyvisualcortices,whatyouseeandwhatyouareholdinginmindareintertwinedateventhemostfundamentalstagesofprocessing. Thisisapreviewofsubscriptioncontent,accessviayourinstitution Relevantarticles OpenAccessarticlescitingthisarticle. Concurrentvisualworkingmemorybiasinsequentialintegrationofapproximatenumber ZhiqiKang & BernhardSpitzer ScientificReports OpenAccess 05March2021 Accessoptions Accessthroughyourinstitution Changeinstitution Buyorsubscribe SubscribetoJournalGetfulljournalaccessfor1year111,21€only9,27€perissueSubscribeAllpricesareNETprices.VATwillbeaddedlaterinthecheckout.Taxcalculationwillbefinalisedduringcheckout.BuyarticleGettimelimitedorfullarticleaccessonReadCube.$32.00BuyAllpricesareNETprices. Additionalaccessoptions: Login Learnaboutinstitutionalsubscriptions Fig.1:BidirectionalinterferencebetweenVWMandselectiveattention.Fig.2:OngoingperceptionaltersVWMrepresentation.Fig.3:TestingtheimpactfromVWMtoperceptioninexperiment3.Fig.4:VWMchangestheappearanceofcolourandorientation,reflectedbythechangesindiscriminationthresholds. Dataavailability ThedatathatsupportthefindingsofthisstudyareavailableintheOpenScienceFrameworkathttps://osf.io/j7nv2/. Codeavailability ThecustomcodedevelopedforthisstudyisavailableintheOpenScienceFrameworkathttps://osf.io/j7nv2/. ReferencesDowning,P.E.&Dodds,C.M.Competitioninvisualworkingmemoryforcontrolofsearch.Vis.Cogn.11,689–703(2004).Article  GoogleScholar  Olivers,C.N.L.,Meijer,F.&Theeuwes,J.Feature-basedmemory-drivenattentionalcapture:visualworkingmemorycontentaffectsvisualattention.J.Exp.Psychol.Hum.Percept.Perform.32,1243–1265(2006).Article  GoogleScholar  Soto,D.,Hodsoll,J.,Rotshtein,P.&Humphreys,G.W.Automaticguidanceofattentionfromworkingmemory.TrendsCogn.Sci.12,342–348(2008).Article  GoogleScholar  Kiyonaga,A.&Egner,T.Center-surroundinhibitioninworkingmemory.Curr.Biol.26,1–5(2016).Article  GoogleScholar  Baddeley,A.WorkingMemory,Thought,andAction.(OUPOxford,2007).Harrison,S.A.&Tong,F.Decodingrevealsthecontentsofvisualworkingmemoryinearlyvisualareas.Nature458,632–635(2009).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Serences,J.,Ester,E.,Vogel,E.K.&Awh,E.Stimulus-specificdelayactivityinhumanprimaryvisualcortex.Psychol.Sci.20,207–214(2009).Article  GoogleScholar  Emrich,S.M.,Riggall,A.C.,Larocque,J.J.&Postle,B.R.Distributedpatternsofactivityinsensorycortexfeflectthememory.J.Neurosci.33,6516–6523(2013).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Riggall,A.C.&Postle,B.R.Therelationshipbetweenworkingmemorystorageandelevatedactivityasmeasuredwithfunctionalmagneticresonanceimaging.J.Neurosci.32,12990–12998(2012).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Pasternak,T.&Greenlee,M.W.Workingmemoryinprimatesensorysystems.Nat.Rev.Neurosci.6,97–107(2005).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  D’Esposito,M.&Postle,B.R.Thecognitiveneuroscienceofworkingmemory.Annu.Rev.Psychol.66,115–142(2015).Article  GoogleScholar  Postle,B.R.Workingmemoryasanemergentpropertyofthemindandbrain.Neuroscience139,23–38(2006).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Postle,B.R.Thecognitiveneuroscienceofvisualshort-termmemory.Curr.Opin.Behav.Sci.1,40–46(2015).Article  GoogleScholar  Christophel,T.B.,Hebart,M.N.&Haynes,J.-D.Decodingthecontentsofvisualshort-termmemoryfromhumanvisualandparietalcortex.J.Neurosci.32,12983–12989(2012).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Lee,S.H.,Kravitz,D.J.&Baker,C.I.Goal-dependentdissociationofvisualandprefrontalcorticesduringworkingmemory.Nat.Neurosci.16,997–999(2013).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Awh,E.,Vogel,E.K.&Oh,S.H.Interactionsbetweenattentionandworkingmemory.Neuroscience139,201–208(2006).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Chun,M.M.,Golomb,J.D.&Turk-Browne,N.B.Ataxonomyofexternalandinternalattention.Annu.Rev.Psychol.62,73–101(2010).Article  GoogleScholar  Lavie,N.&DeFockert,J.Theroleofworkingmemoryinattentionalcapture.Psychon.Bull.Rev.12,669–674(2005).Article  GoogleScholar  Cowan,N.Anembedded-processesmodelofworkingmemory.inModelsofWorkingMemory:MechanismsofActiveMaintenanceandExecutiveControl(ed.Miyake,A.&Shah,P.)62–102(CambridgeUniversityPress,1999).Corbetta,M.&Shulman,G.L.Controlofgoal-directedandstimulus-drivenattentioninthebrain.Nat.Rev.Neurosci.3,201–215(2002).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Lepsien,J.&Nobre,A.C.Cognitivecontrolofattentioninthehumanbrain:insightsfromorientingattentiontomentalrepresentations.Brain.Res.1105,20–31(2006).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Courtney,S.M.,Ungerleider,L.G.,Keil,K.&Haxby,J.V.Transientandsustainedactivityinadistributedneuralsystemforhumanworkingmemory.Nature386,608–611(1997).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Fuster,J.Theprefrontalcortex—anupdate:timeisoftheessence.Neuron30,319–333(2001).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Goldman-RakicCellularbasisofworkingmemoryreview.Neuron14,477–485(1995).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Miller,E.K.,Erickson,C.&Desimone,R.Neuralmechanismsofvisualworkingmemoryinprefrontalcortexofthemacaque.J.Neurosci.16,5154–5167(1996).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Pessoa,L.&Ungerleider,L.G.Top-DownMechanismsforWorkingMemoryandAttentionalProcesses.inTheCognitiveNeurosciences(ed.Gazzaniga,M.S.)919–930(MITPress,2004).Oliveri,M.etal.Parieto-frontalinteractionsinvisual-objectandvisual-spatialworkingmemory:evidencefromtranscranialmagneticstimulation.Cereb.Cortex11,606–618(2001).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Rademaker,R.L.,VanDeVen,V.G.,Tong,F.&Sack,A.T.Theimpactofearlyvisualcortextranscranialmagneticstimulationonvisualworkingmemoryprecisionandguessrate.PLoSOne12,e0175230(2017).Article  GoogleScholar  Rose,N.S.etal.Reactivationoflatentworkingmemorieswithtranscranialmagneticstimulation.Science354,1136–1139(2016).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Zokaei,N.,Manohar,S.,Husain,M.&Feredoes,E.Causaldvidenceforaprivilegedworkingmemorystateinearlyvisualcortex.J.Neurosci.34,158–162(2014).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Xu,Y.Sensorycortexisnonessentialinworkingmemorystorage.TrendsCogn.Sci.22,192–193(2018).Article  GoogleScholar  Xu,Y.Reevaluatingthesensoryaccountofvisualworkingmemorystorage.TrendsCogn.Sci.21,794–815(2017).Article  GoogleScholar  Bettencourt,K.C.&Xu,Y.Decodingthecontentofvisualshort-termmemoryunderdistractioninoccipitalandparietalareas.Nat.Neurosci.19,150–157(2016).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Awh,E.&Jonides,J.Overlappingmechansimsofattentionandspatialworkingmemory.TrendsCogn.Sci.5,119–126(2001).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Magnussen,S.&Greenlee,M.W.Retentionanddisruptionofmotioninformationinvisualshort-termmemory.J.Exp.Psychol.Learn.Mem.Cogn.18,151–156(1992).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Wildegger,T.,Myers,N.E.,Humphreys,G.&Nobre,A.C.Supraliminalbutnotsubliminaldistractersbiasworkingmemoryrecall.J.Exp.Psychol.Hum.Percept.Perform.41,826–839(2015).Article  GoogleScholar  Nemes,V.A.,Parry,N.R.A.,Whitaker,D.&McKeefry,D.J.Theretentionanddisruptionofcolorinformationinhumanshort-termvisualmemory.J.Vis.12,26(2012).Article  GoogleScholar  Rademaker,R.L.,Bloem,I.M.,DeWeerd,P.&Sack,A.T.Theimpactofinterferenceonshort-termmemoryforvisualorientation.J.Exp.Psychol.Hum.Percept.Perform.41,1650–1665(2015).Article  GoogleScholar  Lorenc,E.S.,Sreenivasan,K.K.,Nee,D.E.,Vandenbroucke,A.R.E.&D’Esposito,M.Flexiblecodingofvisualworkingmemoryrepresentationsduringdistraction.J.Neurosci.38,5267–5276(2018).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Mansfield,R.J.W.&Ronner,S.F.Orientationanisotropyinmonkeyvisualcortex.BrainRes.149,229–234(1978).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Ringach,D.L.,Shapley,R.M.&Hawken,M.J.OrientationselectivityinmacaqueV1:diversityandlaminardependence.J.Neurosci.22,5639–5651(2002).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Shapley,R.,Hawken,M.&Ringach,D.L.Dynamicsoforientationselectivityintheprimaryvisualcortexandtheimportanceofcorticalinhibition.Neuron38,689–699(2003).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Bohon,K.S.,Hermann,K.L.,Hansen,T.&Conway,B.R.Representationofperceptualcolorspaceinmacaqueposteriorinferiortemporalcortex(theV4complex).eNeuro3,ENEURO.0039–16.2016(2016).Article  GoogleScholar  Geng,J.J.,DiQuattro,N.E.&Helm,J.Distractorprobabilitychangestheshapeoftheattentionaltemplate.J.Exp.Psychol.Hum.Percept.Perform.43,1993–2007(2017).Article  GoogleScholar  Zhang,W.&Luck,S.J.Discretefixed-resolutionrepresentationsinvisualworkingmemory.Nature453,233–235(2008).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Bays,P.M.&Husain,M.Dynamicshiftsoflimitedworkingmemoryresourcesinhumanvision.Science321,851–854(2008).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Joseph,J.S.,Chun,M.M.&Nakayama,K.Attentionalrequirementsina‘preattentive’featuresearchtask.Nature387,805–807(1997).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Horton,J.C.&Hoyt,W.F.Therepresentationofthevisualfieldinhumanstriatecortex.Arch.Opthalmology109,816–824(1991).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Engel,S.A.,Glover,G.H.&Wandell,B.A.RetinotopicorganizationinhumanvisualcortexandthespatialprecisionoffunctionalMRI.Cereb.Cortex7,181–192(1997).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  McAdams,C.J.&Maunsell,J.H.Effectsofattentiononorientation-tuningfunctionsofsingleneuronsinmacaquecorticalareaV4.J.Neurosci.19,431–441(1999).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Müller,N.G.&Kleinschmidt,A.Dynamicinteractionofobject-andspace-basedattentioninretinotopicvisualareas.J.Neurosci.23,9812–9816(2003).Article  GoogleScholar  Carrasco,M.,Ling,S.&Read,S.Attentionaltersappearance.Nat.Neurosci.7,308–313(2004).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Fuller,S.&Carrasco,M.Exogenousattentionandcolorperception:performanceandappearanceofsaturationandhue.Vis.Res.46,4032–4047(2006).Article  GoogleScholar  Liu,T.,Fuller,S.&Carrasco,M.Attentionalterstheappearanceofmotioncoherence.Psychon.Bull.Rev.13,1091–1096(2006).Article  GoogleScholar  Prins,N.&Kingdom,F.A.A.Applyingthemodel-comparisonapproachtotestspecificresearchhypothesesinpsychophysicalresearchusingthePalamedestoolbox.Front.Psychol.9,1250(2018).Article  GoogleScholar  Scimeca,J.M.,Kiyonaga,A.&D’Esposito,M.Reaffirmingthesensoryrecruitmentaccountofworkingmemory.TrendsCogn.Sci.22,190–192(2018).Article  GoogleScholar  Albers,A.M.etal.Supplementalinformationsharedrepresentationsforworkingmemoryandmentalimageryinearlyvisualcortex.Curr.Biol.23,1427–1431(2013).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Farah,M.J.Psychophysicalevidenceforasharedrepresentationalmediumformentalimagesandpercepts.J.Exp.Psychol.Gen.114,91–103(1985).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Christophel,T.B.,Klink,P.C.,Spitzer,B.,Roelfsema,P.R.&Haynes,J.D.Thedistributednatureofworkingmemory.TrendsCogn.Sci.21,111–124(2017).Article  GoogleScholar  Sreenivasan,K.K.,Curtis,C.E.&D’Esposito,M.Revisitingtheroleofpersistentneuralactivityduringworkingmemory.TrendsCogn.Sci.18,82–89(2014).Article  GoogleScholar  Miller,E.K.&Cohen,J.D.Anintegrativetheoryofprefrontalcortexfunction.Annu.Rev.Neurosci.24,167–202(2001).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Woolgar,A.,Hampshire,A.,Thompson,R.&Duncan,J.Adaptivecodingoftask-relevantinformationinhumanfrontoparietalcortex.J.Neurosci.31,14592–14599(2011).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Mongillo,G.,Barak,O.&Tsodyks,M.Synaptictheoryofworkingmemory.Science319,1543–1546(2008).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Gazzaley,A.&Nobre,A.C.Top-downmodulation:bridgingselectiveattentionandworkingmemory.TrendsCogn.Sci.16,129–135(2012).Article  GoogleScholar  Dowd,E.W.&Mitroff,S.R.Attentionalguidancebyworkingmemoryoverridessaliencecuesinvisualsearch.J.Exp.Psychol.Hum.Percept.Perform.39,1786–1796(2013).Article  GoogleScholar  Kiyonaga,A.&Egner,T.Workingmemoryasinternalattention:towardanintegrativeaccountofinternalandexternalselectionprocesses.Psychon.Bull.Rev.20,228–242(2013).Article  GoogleScholar  Kohn,A.Visualadaptation:physiology,mechanisms,andfunctionalbenefits.J.Neurophysiol.10461,3155–3164(2007).Article  GoogleScholar  Montagna,B.,Pestilli,F.&Carrasco,M.Attentiontradesoffspatialacuity.Vis.Res.49,735–745(2009).Article  GoogleScholar  Gureckis,T.M.etal.psiTurk:anopen-sourceframeworkforconductingreplicablebehavioralexperimentsonline.Behav.Res.Methods48,829–842(2016).Article  GoogleScholar  Kiyonaga,A.&Egner,T.Theworkingmemorystroopeffect:wheninternalrepresentationsclashwithexternalstimuli.Psychol.Sci.25,1619–1629(2014).Article  GoogleScholar  Crump,M.J.C.,McDonnell,J.V.&Gureckis,T.M.EvaluatingAmazon’sMechanicalTurkasatoolforexperimentalbehavioralresearch.PLoSOne8,e57410(2013).CAS  Article  GoogleScholar  Brady,T.F.&Alvarez,G.A.Hierarchicalencodinginvisualworkingmemory:ensemblestatisticsbiasmemoryforindividualitems.Psychol.Sci.22,384–392(2011).Article  GoogleScholar  Brady,T.F.&Alvarez,G.A.Noevidenceforafixedobjectlimitinworkingmemory:spatialensemblerepresentationsinflateestimatesofworkingmemorycapacityforcomplexobjects.J.Exp.Psychol.Learn.Mem.Cogn.41,921–929(2015).Article  GoogleScholar  Lew,T.F.&Vul,E.EnsembleclusteringinvisualworkingmemorybiaseslocationmemoriesandreducestheWebernoiseofrelativepositions.J.Vis.15,10(2015).Article  GoogleScholar  Shin,H.&Ma,W.J.Crowdsourcedsingle-trialprobesofvisualworkingmemoryforirrelevantfeatures.J.Vis.16,10(2016).Article  GoogleScholar  Woodman,G.F.&Luck,S.J.Dothecontentsofvisualworkingmemoryautomaticallyinfluenceattentionalselectionduringvisualsearch?J.Exp.Psychol.Hum.Percept.Perform.33,363(2007).Article  GoogleScholar  Lakens,D.Calculatingandreportingeffectsizestofacilitatecumulativescience:apracticalprimerfort-testsandANOVAs.Front.Psychol.4,863(2013).Article  GoogleScholar  DownloadreferencesAcknowledgementsWethankthecolleaguesinthepsychologydepartmentofGeorgeWashingtonUniversityfortheirhelpfuldiscussion.Especially,wethankS.Shomstein,S.MitroffandM.Behrmannfortheirinsightfulcommentsonthismanuscript.Thisresearchprojectwassupportedbystart-upfundsgrantedtoD.J.K.byGWU.Thefundershadnoroleinstudydesign,datacollectionandanalysis,decisiontopublishorpreparationofthemanuscript.AuthorinformationAuthorsandAffiliationsDepartmentofPsychology,GeorgeWashingtonUniversity,Washington,DC,USAChunyueTeng & DwightJ.KravitzAuthorsChunyueTengViewauthorpublicationsYoucanalsosearchforthisauthorin PubMed GoogleScholarDwightJ.KravitzViewauthorpublicationsYoucanalsosearchforthisauthorin PubMed GoogleScholarContributionsC.T.andD.J.K.designedtheexperiments.C.T.collectedthedataandperformedanalysis.C.T.andD.J.K.wrotethemanuscript.CorrespondingauthorCorrespondenceto ChunyueTeng.Ethicsdeclarations Competinginterests Theauthorsdeclarenocompetinginterests. AdditionalinformationPeerreviewinformation:PrimaryHandlingEditor:MarikeSchiffer.Publisher’snote:SpringerNatureremainsneutralwithregardtojurisdictionalclaimsinpublishedmapsandinstitutionalaffiliations.SupplementaryinformationSupplementaryInformationSupplementaryFigs.1–5andSupplementaryTables1–5.ReportingSummaryRightsandpermissionsReprintsandPermissionsAboutthisarticleCitethisarticleTeng,C.,Kravitz,D.J.Visualworkingmemorydirectlyaltersperception. NatHumBehav3,827–836(2019).https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0640-4DownloadcitationReceived:19November2018Accepted:23May2019Published:08July2019IssueDate:August2019DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0640-4SharethisarticleAnyoneyousharethefollowinglinkwithwillbeabletoreadthiscontent:GetshareablelinkSorry,ashareablelinkisnotcurrentlyavailableforthisarticle.Copytoclipboard ProvidedbytheSpringerNatureSharedItcontent-sharinginitiative Furtherreading Concurrentvisualworkingmemorybiasinsequentialintegrationofapproximatenumber ZhiqiKang BernhardSpitzer ScientificReports(2021) Acognitivemodelforemotionalregulationinvirtualrealityexposure MarcelTakac JamesCollett AlexanderDeFoe VirtualReality(2021) Accessthroughyourinstitution Changeinstitution Buyorsubscribe Advertisement Explorecontent Researcharticles Reviews&Analysis News&Comment Videos Currentissue Collections FollowusonTwitter Subscribe Signupforalerts RSSfeed Aboutthejournal Aims&Scope JournalInformation JournalMetrics AbouttheEditors Ourpublishingmodels EditorialValuesStatement EditorialPolicies ContentTypes AdvisoryPanel Contact Publishwithus SubmissionGuidelines ForReviewers Submitmanuscript Search Searcharticlesbysubject,keywordorauthor Showresultsfrom Alljournals Thisjournal Search Advancedsearch Quicklinks Explorearticlesbysubject Findajob Guidetoauthors Editorialpolicies Closebanner Close SignupfortheNatureBriefingnewsletter—whatmattersinscience,freetoyourinboxdaily. Emailaddress Signup IagreemyinformationwillbeprocessedinaccordancewiththeNatureandSpringerNatureLimitedPrivacyPolicy. Closebanner Close Getthemostimportantsciencestoriesoftheday,freeinyourinbox. SignupforNatureBriefing