Scholz Agnes, Mehlhorn Katja, Krems Josef F
Department of Psychology, Technische Universität Chemnitz, 09120, Chemnitz, Germany.
Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Groningen, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands.
Psychol Res. 2016 Jan;80(1):149-58. doi: 10.1007/s00426-014-0639-4. Epub 2014 Dec 20.
People fixate on blank spaces if visual stimuli previously occupied these regions of space. This so-called "looking at nothing" (LAN) phenomenon is said to be a part of information retrieval from internal memory representations, but the exact nature of the relationship between LAN and memory retrieval is unclear. While evidence exists for an influence of LAN on memory retrieval for visuospatial stimuli, evidence for verbal information is mixed. Here, we tested the relationship between LAN behavior and memory retrieval in an episodic retrieval task where verbal information was presented auditorily during encoding. When participants were allowed to gaze freely during subsequent memory retrieval, LAN occurred, and it was stronger for correct than for incorrect responses. When eye movements were manipulated during memory retrieval, retrieval performance was higher when participants fixated on the area associated with to-be-retrieved information than when fixating on another area. Our results provide evidence for a functional relationship between LAN and memory retrieval that extends to verbal information.
如果视觉刺激先前占据了这些空间区域，人们会注视空白空间。这种所谓的“看空”（LAN）现象据说属于从内部记忆表征中进行信息检索的一部分，但LAN与记忆检索之间关系的确切性质尚不清楚。虽然有证据表明LAN对视觉空间刺激的记忆检索有影响，但关于言语信息的证据则好坏参半。在此，我们在一项情景检索任务中测试了LAN行为与记忆检索之间的关系，在编码过程中通过听觉呈现言语信息。当参与者在随后的记忆检索过程中被允许自由注视时，会出现LAN，且正确反应的LAN比错误反应更强。当在记忆检索过程中操纵眼球运动时，与注视其他区域相比，参与者注视与待检索信息相关区域时的检索表现更高。我们的结果为LAN与记忆检索之间的功能关系提供了证据，这种关系延伸到了言语信息。
