Department of Psychology, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2023 Mar;76(3):672-704. doi: 10.1177/17470218221103253. Epub 2022 Jun 20.
Updating spatial representations in visual and auditory working memory relies on common processes, and the modalities should compete for attentional resources. If competition occurs, one type of spatial information is presumably weighted over the other, irrespective of sensory modality. This study used incompatible spatial information conveyed from two different cue modalities to examine relative dominance in memory updating. Participants mentally manoeuvred a designated target in a matrix according to visual or auditory stimuli that were presented simultaneously, to identify a terminal location. Prior to the navigation task, the relative perceptual saliences of the visual cues were manipulated to be equal, superior, or inferior to the auditory cues. The results demonstrate that visual and auditory information competed for attentional resources, such that visual/auditory guidance was impaired by incongruent cues delivered from the other modality. Although visual bias was generally observed in working-memory navigation, stimuli of relatively high salience interfered with or facilitated other stimuli regardless of modality, demonstrating the processing symmetry of spatial updating in visual and auditory spatial working memory. Furthermore, this processing symmetry can be identified during the encoding of sensory inputs into working-memory representations. The results imply that auditory spatial updating is comparable to visual spatial updating in that salient stimuli receive a high priority when selecting inputs and are used when tracking spatial representations.
更新视觉和听觉工作记忆中的空间表示依赖于共同的过程，两种模态应该争夺注意力资源。如果发生竞争，一种类型的空间信息可能会优先于另一种，而与感觉模态无关。本研究使用来自两种不同提示模态的不兼容空间信息来检查记忆更新中的相对优势。参与者根据同时呈现的视觉或听觉刺激，在矩阵中操纵指定的目标，以确定终端位置。在导航任务之前，操纵视觉提示的相对感知显著性，使其与听觉提示相等、优于或劣于听觉提示。结果表明，视觉和听觉信息争夺注意力资源，因此来自另一种模态的不和谐提示会干扰视觉/听觉引导。尽管在工作记忆导航中通常观察到视觉偏向，但无论模态如何，具有相对高显著性的刺激会干扰或促进其他刺激，这表明视觉和听觉空间工作记忆中的空间更新具有处理对称性。此外，这种处理对称性可以在将感官输入编码到工作记忆表示中时识别出来。结果表明，听觉空间更新与视觉空间更新相当，因为在选择输入时，显著的刺激会获得较高的优先级，并在跟踪空间表示时使用。
