O'Donnell Ryan E, Clement Andrew, Brockmole James R
Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2018 Jul;44(7):1151-1158. doi: 10.1037/xlm0000508. Epub 2018 Apr 12.
Visual working memory (VWM) has a limited capacity of approximately 3-4 visual objects. Current theories of VWM propose that a limited pool of resources can be flexibly allocated to objects, allowing them to be represented at varying levels of precision. Factors that influence the allocation of these resources, such as the complexity and perceptual grouping of objects, can thus affect the capacity of VWM. We sought to identify whether semantic and functional relationships between objects could influence the grouping of objects, thereby increasing the functional capacity of VWM. Observers viewed arrays of 8 to-be-remembered objects arranged into 4 pairs. We manipulated both the semantic association and functional interaction between the objects, then probed participants' memory for the arrays. When objects were semantically related, participants' memory for the arrays improved. Participants' memory further improved when semantically related objects were positioned to interact with each other. However, when we increased the spacing between the objects in each pair, the benefits of functional but not semantic relatedness were eliminated. These findings suggest that action-relevant properties of objects can increase the functional capacity of VWM, but only when objects are positioned to directly interact with each other. (PsycINFO Database Record
视觉工作记忆（VWM）的容量有限，大约能容纳3至4个视觉对象。当前关于VWM的理论认为，有限的资源池可以灵活地分配给各个对象，使它们能够以不同的精确程度得到表征。因此，影响这些资源分配的因素，如对象的复杂性和感知分组，会影响VWM的容量。我们试图确定对象之间的语义和功能关系是否会影响对象的分组，从而提高VWM的功能容量。观察者观看由8个待记忆对象组成的阵列，这些对象被分成4对。我们操纵了对象之间的语义关联和功能交互，然后测试参与者对阵列的记忆。当对象在语义上相关时，参与者对阵列的记忆得到改善。当语义相关的对象被放置成相互作用时，参与者的记忆进一步改善。然而，当我们增加每对对象之间的间距时，功能相关性而非语义相关性带来的益处就消失了。这些发现表明，对象的与动作相关的属性可以提高VWM的功能容量，但前提是对象被放置成直接相互作用。（《心理学文摘数据库记录》 ）
