scholarly journals Dynamic interactions between visual working memory and saccade target selection

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (11) ◽  
pp. 9-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Schneegans ◽  
J. P. Spencer ◽  
G. Schoner ◽  
S. Hwang ◽  
A. Hollingworth
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Target Selection ◽  
Saccade Target ◽  
Dynamic Interactions

Oculomotor selection underlies feature retention in visual working memory

2016 ◽  
Vol 115 (2) ◽  
pp. 1071-1076 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina M. Hanning ◽  
Donatas Jonikaitis ◽  
Heiner Deubel ◽  
Martin Szinte
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Target Selection ◽  
Spatial Task ◽  
Saccade Target ◽  
Task Relevance ◽  
Feature Representations ◽  
Feature Based ◽  
Target Locations

Oculomotor selection, spatial task relevance, and visual working memory (WM) are described as three processes highly intertwined and sustained by similar cortical structures. However, because task-relevant locations always constitute potential saccade targets, no study so far has been able to distinguish between oculomotor selection and spatial task relevance. We designed an experiment that allowed us to dissociate in humans the contribution of task relevance, oculomotor selection, and oculomotor execution to the retention of feature representations in WM. We report that task relevance and oculomotor selection lead to dissociable effects on feature WM maintenance. In a first task, in which an object's location was encoded as a saccade target, its feature representations were successfully maintained in WM, whereas they declined at nonsaccade target locations. Likewise, we observed a similar WM benefit at the target of saccades that were prepared but never executed. In a second task, when an object's location was marked as task relevant but constituted a nonsaccade target (a location to avoid), feature representations maintained at that location did not benefit. Combined, our results demonstrate that oculomotor selection is consistently associated with WM, whereas task relevance is not. This provides evidence for an overlapping circuitry serving saccade target selection and feature-based WM that can be dissociated from processes encoding task-relevant locations.

scholarly journals Visual Working Memory Load Disrupts Template-guided Attentional Selection during Visual Search

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (12) ◽  
pp. 1902-1915 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Berggren ◽  
Martin Eimer
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Search ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Target Selection ◽  
Target Color ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Single Feature ◽  
Single Target ◽  
Candidate Target

Mental representations of target features (attentional templates) control the selection of candidate target objects in visual search. The question where templates are maintained remains controversial. We employed the N2pc component as an electrophysiological marker of template-guided target selection to investigate whether and under which conditions templates are held in visual working memory (vWM). In two experiments, participants memorized one or four shapes (low vs. high vWM load) before either being tested on their memory or performing a visual search task. When targets were defined by one of two possible colors (e.g., red or green), target N2pcs were delayed with high vWM load. This suggests that the maintenance of multiple shapes in vWM interfered with the activation of color-specific search templates, supporting the hypothesis that these templates are held in vWM. This was the case despite participants always searching for the same two target colors. In contrast, the speed of target selection in a task where a single target color remained relevant throughout was unaffected by concurrent load, indicating that a constant search template for a single feature may be maintained outside vWM in a different store. In addition, early visual N1 components to search and memory test displays were attenuated under high load, suggesting a competition between external and internal attention. The size of this attenuation predicted individual vWM performance. These results provide new electrophysiological evidence for impairment of top–down attentional control mechanisms by high vWM load, demonstrating that vWM is involved in the guidance of attentional target selection during search.

scholarly journals Transsaccadic integration benefits are not limited to the saccade target

2019 ◽  
Vol 122 (4) ◽  
pp. 1491-1501
Author(s):  
Emma E. M. Stewart ◽  
Alexander C. Schütz
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Saccade Target ◽  
General Mechanism ◽  
Spatial Profile ◽  
Initial Fixation ◽  
Perceptual Performance ◽  
Transsaccadic Integration ◽  
Spatial Specificity

Across saccades, humans can integrate the low-resolution presaccadic information of an upcoming saccade target with the high-resolution postsaccadic information. There is converging evidence to suggest that transsaccadic integration occurs at the saccade target. However, given divergent evidence on the spatial specificity of related mechanisms such as attention, visual working memory, and remapping, it is unclear whether integration is also possible at locations other than the saccade target. We tested the spatial profile of transsaccadic integration, by testing perceptual performance at six locations around the saccade target and between the saccade target and initial fixation. Results show that integration benefits do not differ between the saccade target and surrounding locations. Transsaccadic integration benefits are not specific to the saccade target and can occur at other locations when they are behaviorally relevant, although there is a trend for worse performance for the location above initial fixation compared with those in the direction of the saccade. This suggests that transsaccadic integration may be a more general mechanism used to reconcile task-relevant pre- and postsaccadic information at attended locations other than the saccade target. NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study shows that integration of pre- and postsaccadic information across saccades is not restricted to the saccade target. We found performance benefits of transsaccadic integration at attended locations other than the saccade target, and these benefits did not differ from those found at the saccade target. This suggests that transsaccadic integration may be a more general mechanism used to reconcile pre- and postsaccadic information at task-relevant locations.

scholarly journals Dynamic interactions between visual working memory and saccade planning

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 537-537
Author(s):  
J. Spencer ◽  
S. Schneegans ◽  
A. Hollingworth
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Dynamic Interactions

scholarly journals Oculomotor capture reveals trial-by-trial neural correlates of attentional guidance by contents of visual working memory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie M. Beck ◽  
Timothy J. Vickery
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Retention Interval ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Attentional Capture ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Saccade Target ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Oculomotor Capture ◽  
Attentional Guidance ◽  
Task Irrelevant

AbstractEvidence from attentional and oculomotor capture, contingent capture, and other paradigms suggests that mechanisms supporting human visual working memory (VWM) and visual attention are intertwined. Features held in VWM bias guidance toward matching items even when those features are task irrelevant. However, the neural basis of this interaction is underspecified. Prior examinations using fMRI have primarily relied on coarse comparisons across experimental conditions that produce varying amounts of capture. To examine the neural dynamics of attentional capture on a trial-by-trial basis, we applied an oculomotor paradigm that produced discrete measures of capture. On each trial, subjects were shown a memory item, followed by a blank retention interval, then a saccade target that appeared to the left or right. On some trials, an irrelevant distractor appeared above or below fixation. Once the saccade target was fixated, subjects completed a forced-choice memory test. Critically, either the target or distractor could match the feature held in VWM. Although task irrelevant, this manipulation produced differences in behavior: participants were more likely to saccade first to an irrelevant VWM-matching distractor compared with a non-matching distractor – providing a discrete measure of capture. We replicated this finding while recording eye movements and scanning participants’ brains using fMRI. To examine the neural basis of oculomotor capture, we separately modeled the retention interval for capture and non-capture trials within the distractor-match condition. We found that frontal activity, including anterior cingulate cortex and superior frontal gyrus regions, differentially predicted subsequent oculomotor capture by a memory-matching distractor. Other regions previously implicated as involved in attentional capture by VWM-matching items showed no differential activity across capture and no-capture trials, even at a liberal threshold. Our findings demonstrate the power of trial-by-trial analyses of oculomotor capture as a means to examine the underlying relationship between VWM and attentional guidance systems.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document