Lange Nicholas D, Buttaccio Daniel R, Davelaar Eddy J, Thomas Rick P
Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK,
Mem Cognit. 2014 Feb;42(2):264-74. doi: 10.3758/s13421-013-0354-1.
Research investigating top-down capture has demonstrated a coupling of working memory content with attention and eye movements. By capitalizing on this relationship, we have developed a novel methodology, called the memory activation capture (MAC) procedure, for measuring the dynamics of working memory content supporting complex cognitive tasks (e.g., decision making, problem solving). The MAC procedure employs briefly presented visual arrays containing task-relevant information at critical points in a task. By observing which items are preferentially fixated, we gain a measure of working memory content as the task evolves through time. The efficacy of the MAC procedure was demonstrated in a dynamic hypothesis generation task in which some of its advantages over existing methods for measuring changes in the contents of working memory over time are highlighted. In two experiments, the MAC procedure was able to detect the hypothesis that was retrieved and placed into working memory. Moreover, the results from Experiment 2 suggest a two-stage process following hypothesis retrieval, whereby the hypothesis undergoes a brief period of heightened activation before entering a lower activation state in which it is maintained for output. The results of both experiments are of additional general interest, as they represent the first demonstrations of top-down capture driven by participant-established WM content retrieved from long-term memory.
对自上而下捕获的研究表明，工作记忆内容与注意力和眼动之间存在耦合关系。利用这种关系，我们开发了一种名为记忆激活捕获（MAC）程序的新方法，用于测量支持复杂认知任务（如决策、解决问题）的工作记忆内容的动态变化。MAC程序在任务的关键节点使用短暂呈现的包含任务相关信息的视觉阵列。通过观察哪些项目被优先注视，我们可以在任务随时间发展的过程中获得对工作记忆内容的一种度量。MAC程序的有效性在一个动态假设生成任务中得到了证明，其中突出了它相对于现有测量工作记忆内容随时间变化的方法的一些优势。在两个实验中，MAC程序能够检测到被检索并放入工作记忆中的假设。此外，实验2的结果表明，在假设检索之后存在一个两阶段过程，即假设在进入较低激活状态并在其中保持以供输出之前，会经历一段短暂的激活增强期。这两个实验的结果还有其他普遍意义，因为它们首次展示了由从长期记忆中检索出的参与者建立的工作记忆内容驱动的自上而下捕获。
