Research Group Adaptive Memory and Decision Making, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany.
Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany.
Nat Hum Behav. 2024 Feb;8(2):336-348. doi: 10.1038/s41562-023-01737-z. Epub 2023 Dec 18.
Stimulus-dependent eye movements have been recognized as a potential confound in decoding visual working memory information from neural signals. Here we combined eye-tracking with representational geometry analyses to uncover the information in miniature gaze patterns while participants (n = 41) were cued to maintain visual object orientations. Although participants were discouraged from breaking fixation by means of real-time feedback, small gaze shifts (<1°) robustly encoded the to-be-maintained stimulus orientation, with evidence for encoding two sequentially presented orientations at the same time. The orientation encoding on stimulus presentation was object-specific, but it changed to a more object-independent format during cued maintenance, particularly when attention had been temporarily withdrawn from the memorandum. Finally, categorical reporting biases increased after unattended storage, with indications of biased gaze geometries already emerging during the maintenance periods before behavioural reporting. These findings disclose a wealth of information in gaze patterns during visuospatial working memory and indicate systematic changes in representational format when memory contents have been unattended.
依赖刺激的眼动已被认为是从神经信号中解码视觉工作记忆信息的一个潜在混杂因素。在这里，我们结合眼动追踪和表象几何分析，揭示了参与者（n=41）被提示保持视觉物体方向时微型注视模式中的信息。尽管参与者通过实时反馈被劝阻不要打破注视，但小的眼球转移（<1°）确实编码了要保持的刺激方向，同时也有证据表明同时编码了两个连续呈现的方向。在刺激呈现时的方向编码是特定于物体的，但在提示保持期间，它会转变为更不依赖于物体的格式，特别是当注意力暂时从备忘录中转移开时。最后，在无注意存储后，类别报告偏差增加，在行为报告之前的维持期间已经出现了有偏差的注视几何的迹象。这些发现揭示了在视空间工作记忆过程中注视模式中的大量信息，并表明当记忆内容被忽视时，表象格式会发生系统变化。
