Lin Po-Han, Luck Steven J
Graduate Institute of Learning and Instruction, National Central University Jhongli, Taiwan.
Front Psychol. 2012 Feb 28;3:42. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00042. eCollection 2012.
The change detection task has become a standard method for estimating the storage capacity of visual working memory. Most researchers assume that this task isolates the properties of an active short-term storage system that can be dissociated from long-term memory systems. However, long-term memory storage may influence performance on this task. In particular, memory traces from previous trials may create proactive interference that sometimes leads to errors, thereby reducing estimated capacity. Consequently, the capacity of visual working memory may be higher than is usually thought, and correlations between capacity and other measures of cognition may reflect individual differences in proactive interference rather than individual differences in the capacity of the short-term storage system. Indeed, previous research has shown that change detection performance can be influenced by proactive interference under some conditions. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether the canonical version of the change detection task - in which the to-be-remembered information consists of simple, briefly presented features - is influenced by proactive interference. Two experiments were conducted using methods that ordinarily produce substantial evidence of proactive interference, but no proactive interference was observed. Thus, the canonical version of the change detection task can be used to assess visual working memory capacity with no meaningful influence of proactive interference.
变化检测任务已成为估计视觉工作记忆存储容量的标准方法。大多数研究人员认为，该任务分离出了一个活跃的短期存储系统的属性，该系统可与长期记忆系统区分开来。然而，长期记忆存储可能会影响此任务的表现。特别是，来自先前试验的记忆痕迹可能会产生前摄干扰，有时会导致错误，从而降低估计的容量。因此，视觉工作记忆的容量可能比通常认为的要高，并且容量与其他认知指标之间的相关性可能反映的是前摄干扰的个体差异，而非短期存储系统容量的个体差异。事实上，先前的研究表明，在某些情况下，变化检测表现会受到前摄干扰的影响。本研究的目的是确定变化检测任务的标准版本——其中要记住的信息由简单、短暂呈现的特征组成——是否会受到前摄干扰的影响。我们进行了两项实验，采用的方法通常会产生大量前摄干扰的证据，但未观察到前摄干扰。因此，变化检测任务的标准版本可用于评估视觉工作记忆容量，而不会受到前摄干扰的有意义影响。
