Department of Psychology, Experimental Psychology, University of Groningen, Grote Kruisstraat 2/1, 9712 TS, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Research School of Behavioural and Cognitive Neurosciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Psychol Res. 2023 Jul;87(5):1569-1589. doi: 10.1007/s00426-022-01757-w. Epub 2022 Oct 29.
Previous research has shown that more information can be stored in visual working memory (VWM) when multiple items belong to the same object. Here, in four experiments, we investigated the object effect on memory for spatially equidistant features by manipulating simple, task-irrelevant contours that combined these features. In Experiments 1, 3, and, 4, three grating orientations, and in Experiment 2, one color and two orientations, were presented simultaneously to be memorized. Mixture modeling was applied to estimate both the precision and the guess rates of recall errors. Overall results showed that two target features were remembered more accurately when both were part of the same object. Further analysis showed that the probability of recall increased in particular when both features were extracted from the same object. In Experiment 2, we found that the object effect was greater for features from orthogonal dimensions, but this came at the cost of lower memory precision. In Experiment 3, when we kept the locations of the features perfectly consistent over trials so that the participants could attend to these locations rather than the contour, we still found object benefits. Finally, in Experiment 4 when we manipulated the temporal order of the object and the memory features presentations, it was confirmed that the object benefit is unlikely to stem from the strategical usage of object information. These results suggested that the object benefit arises automatically, likely at an early perceptual level.
先前的研究表明，当多个项目属于同一对象时，视觉工作记忆（VWM）可以存储更多信息。在这里，我们通过操纵将这些特征组合在一起的简单、与任务无关的轮廓，在四个实验中研究了对象对空间等距特征记忆的影响。在实验 1、3 和 4 中，同时呈现三个光栅方向，在实验 2 中，呈现一种颜色和两个方向以进行记忆。混合建模用于估计召回错误的精度和猜测率。总体结果表明，当两个目标特征都是同一对象的一部分时，它们的记忆准确性更高。进一步的分析表明，当两个特征都从同一对象中提取时，召回的概率特别增加。在实验 2 中，我们发现，对于来自正交维度的特征，对象效应更大，但这是以较低的记忆精度为代价的。在实验 3 中，当我们在试验中保持特征的位置完全一致，以便参与者可以关注这些位置而不是轮廓时，我们仍然发现了对象的好处。最后，在实验 4 中，当我们操纵对象和记忆特征呈现的时间顺序时，证实了对象的好处不太可能源自对象信息的策略性使用。这些结果表明，对象的好处是自动产生的，可能在早期的感知水平上。
