Epstein Michael L, Emmanouil Tatiana A
Program in Psychology, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 365 5th Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, USA.
Department of Psychology, Baruch College of the City University of New York, 55 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY, 10010, USA.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2017 Oct;79(7):2088-2097. doi: 10.3758/s13414-017-1353-2.
A number of studies have provided evidence that the visual system statistically summarizes large amounts of information that would exceed the limitations of attention and working memory (ensemble coding). However the necessity of working memory resources for ensemble coding has not yet been tested directly. In the current study, we used a dual task design to test the effect of object and spatial visual working memory load on size averaging accuracy. In Experiment 1, we tested participants' accuracy in comparing the mean size of two sets under various levels of object visual working memory load. Although the accuracy of average size judgments depended on the difference in mean size between the two sets, we found no effect of working memory load. In Experiment 2, we tested the same average size judgment while participants were under spatial visual working memory load, again finding no effect of load on averaging accuracy. Overall our results reveal that ensemble coding can proceed unimpeded and highly accurately under both object and spatial visual working memory load, providing further evidence that ensemble coding reflects a basic perceptual process distinct from that of individual object processing.
多项研究已提供证据表明，视觉系统会以统计方式汇总大量信息，而这些信息会超出注意力和工作记忆的限制（整体编码）。然而，整体编码对工作记忆资源的必要性尚未得到直接测试。在当前研究中，我们采用双任务设计来测试客体和空间视觉工作记忆负荷对大小平均准确性的影响。在实验1中，我们测试了参与者在不同水平的客体视觉工作记忆负荷下比较两组物体平均大小的准确性。尽管平均大小判断的准确性取决于两组物体平均大小的差异，但我们未发现工作记忆负荷的影响。在实验2中，我们在参与者处于空间视觉工作记忆负荷的情况下测试了相同的平均大小判断，同样未发现负荷对平均准确性有影响。总体而言，我们的结果表明，在客体和空间视觉工作记忆负荷下，整体编码都能不受阻碍且高度准确地进行，这进一步证明整体编码反映了一种不同于单个客体处理的基本感知过程。
