University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2023 Jul;85(5):1649-1660. doi: 10.3758/s13414-023-02654-z. Epub 2023 Mar 1.
Working memory is typically described as a set of processes that allow for the maintenance and manipulation of information for proximal actions, yet the "action" portion of this construct is commonly overlooked. In contrast, neuroscience-informed theories of working memory have emphasized the hierarchical nature of memory representations, including both goals and sensory representations. These two representational domains are combined for the service of actions. Here, we tested whether, as it is commonly measured (i.e., with computer-based stimuli and button-based responses), working memory involved the planning of motor actions (i.e., specific button presses). Next, we examined the role of motor plan learning in successful working memory performance. Results showed that visual working memory performance was disrupted by unpredictable motor mappings, indicating a role for motor planning in working memory. Further, predictable motor mappings were in fact learned over the course of the experiment, thereby causing the measure of working memory to be partially a measure of participants' ability to learn arbitrary associations between visual stimuli and motor responses. Such learning was not highly specific to certain mappings; in sequences of short tasks, participants improved in their abilities to learn to represent items as actions in working memory. We discuss implications for working memory theories in light of hierarchical structure learning and ecological validity.
工作记忆通常被描述为一组允许对近端动作的信息进行维护和操作的过程，但该结构的“动作”部分通常被忽视。相比之下，受神经科学启发的工作记忆理论强调了记忆表示的层次性质，包括目标和感官表示。这两个表示域结合起来为动作服务。在这里，我们测试了工作记忆是否涉及运动动作的计划（即特定按钮按下），因为它通常是通过基于计算机的刺激和基于按钮的反应来衡量的。接下来，我们研究了运动计划学习在成功的工作记忆表现中的作用。结果表明，视觉工作记忆表现受到不可预测的运动映射的干扰，这表明运动计划在工作记忆中起作用。此外，可预测的运动映射实际上是在实验过程中学习的，从而导致工作记忆的测量部分成为衡量参与者在视觉刺激和运动反应之间学习任意关联的能力的指标。这种学习并不是针对某些映射的高度特异性；在短任务序列中，参与者提高了在工作记忆中代表项目作为动作的能力。我们根据层次结构学习和生态有效性讨论了对工作记忆理论的影响。
