Chopurian Vivien, Kienke Anni, Bledowski Christoph, Christophel Thomas B
Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin and Berlin Center for Advanced Neuroimaging, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate member of the Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany.
J Vis. 2025 Jan 2;25(1):16. doi: 10.1167/jov.25.1.16.
Previous research has shown that, when multiple similar items are maintained in working memory, recall precision declines. Less is known about how heterogeneous sets of items across different features within and between modalities impact recall precision. In two experiments, we investigated modality (Experiment 1, n = 79) and feature-specific (Experiment 2, n = 154) load effects on working memory performance. First, we found a cross-modal advantage in continuous recall: Orientations that are memorized together with a pitch are recalled more precisely than orientations that are memorized together with another orientation. The results of our second experiment, however, suggest that this is not a pure effect of sensory modality but rather a feature-dependent effect. We combined orientations, pitches, and colors in pairs. We found that memorizing orientations together with a color benefits orientation recall to a similar extent as the cross-modal benefit. To investigate this absence of interference between orientations and colors held in working memory, we analyzed subjective reports of strategies used for the different features. We found that, although orientations and pitches rely almost exclusively on sensory strategies, colors are memorized not only visually but also with abstract and verbal strategies. Thus, although color stimuli are also visually presented, they might be represented by independent neural circuits. Our results suggest that working memory storage is organized in a modality-, feature-, and strategy-dependent way.
先前的研究表明，当多个相似项目保存在工作记忆中时，回忆精度会下降。对于不同模态内和模态间不同特征的异质项目集如何影响回忆精度，我们了解得较少。在两项实验中，我们研究了模态（实验1，n = 79）和特定特征（实验2，n = 154）负荷对工作记忆表现的影响。首先，我们在连续回忆中发现了一种跨模态优势：与音高一起记忆的方向比与另一个方向一起记忆的方向回忆得更精确。然而，我们第二个实验的结果表明，这并非感觉模态的纯粹效应，而是一种依赖于特征的效应。我们将方向、音高和颜色两两组合。我们发现，将方向与颜色一起记忆对方向回忆的益处程度与跨模态益处相似。为了研究工作记忆中方向和颜色之间不存在干扰的情况，我们分析了针对不同特征所使用策略的主观报告。我们发现，虽然方向和音高几乎完全依赖于感觉策略，但颜色不仅通过视觉记忆，还通过抽象和言语策略记忆。因此，尽管颜色刺激也是通过视觉呈现的，但它们可能由独立的神经回路来表征。我们的结果表明，工作记忆存储是以一种依赖于模态、特征和策略的方式组织的。
