Dynamic Visual Noise Affects Visual Short-Term Memory for Surface Color, but not Spatial Location
Abstract
In two experiments participants retained a single color or a set of four spatial locations in memory. During a 5 s retention interval participants viewed either flickering dynamic visual noise or a static matrix pattern. In Experiment 1 memory was assessed using a recognition procedure, in which participants indicated if a particular test stimulus matched the memorized stimulus or not. In Experiment 2 participants attempted to either reproduce the locations or they picked the color from a whole range of possibilities. Both experiments revealed effects of dynamic visual noise (DVN) on memory for colors but not for locations. The implications of the results for theories of working memory and the methodological prospects for DVN as an experimental tool are discussed.
References
2002). Insensitivity of visual short-term memory to irrelevant visual information. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 55A, 753–774.
(2005). Dynamic visual noise: No interference with visual short-term memory or the construction of visual images. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 17, 405–424.
(1986). Working Memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
(1996). Exploring the central executive. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 49A, 5–28.
(2000). The episodic buffer: A new component of working memory?. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 417–423.
(1974). Working memory. In , Recent advances in learning and motivation, (Vol. 8, pp. 47–89). New York: Academic Press.
(1980). Spatial working memory. In , Attention and performance (Vol. VIII, pp. 521–539). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
(1984). Exploring the articulatory loop. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 36A, 233–252.
(1997). The Psychophysics Toolbox. Spatial Vision, 10, 433–436.
(2007). Maintainence in visuo-spatial working memory. Psychologia, 50, 90–101.
(2007). Behavioural evidence for separating components within visuo-spatial working memory. Cognitive Processing, 8, 175–181.
(2009). Dissociation between appearance and location within visuo-spatial working memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62, 417–425.
(2008). Dynamic visual noise interferes with storage in visual working memory. Experimental Psychology, 55, 283–289.
(1999). Pattern span: A tool for unwelding visuo-spatial memory. Neuropsychologia, 37, 1189–1199.
(2005). Verbal coding and the storage of form – position associations in visual spatial short-term memory. Acta Psychologica, 120, 113–140.
(2006). Capacity limitations and representational shifts in spatial short-term memory. Visual Cognition, 13, 529–572.
(1986). Evidence for a visuo-spatial scratch pad in working memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38A, 675–688.
(1997). Dissociation of visual and spatial processing in working memory. Neuropsychologia, 35, 599–603.
(1999). P and M channel-specific interference in the what and where pathway. Neuroreport, 10(18), 3765–3767.
(1994). Image and brain. The resolution of the imagery debate. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
(1970). Short-term memory while shadowing: Recall of visually and aurally presented letters. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 85, 220–224.
(1971). The role of articulation in auditory and visual short-term memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 10, 123–132.
(1975). Vocalization and suppression effects in sentence memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 14, 304–316.
(1986). Visuo-spatial processing in working memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38A, 229–247.
(1995). Visuo-spatial working memory. Hove: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
(2003). Spatial and visual working memory: a mental workspace. In , The psychology of learning and motivation: Cognitive vision, (Vol. 42, pp. 37–78). New York: Academic Press.
(1991). Visuo-spatial working memory: visual, spatial or central executive? In , Mental images in human cognition (pp. 105–115). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
(2004). Cognitive mechanisms of visual memories and visual images. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 23, 201–207.
(1965). Vocalization-at-presentation, with varying presentation rates. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 17, 47–56.
(1968). Articulation and acoustic confusability in short-term memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 78, 679–684.
(2001). Imagery and the visuo-spatial sketchpad. In , Working memory in perspective. Hove: Psychology Press.
(1997). The VideoToolbox software for visual psychophysics: Transforming numbers into movies. Spatial Vision, 10, 437–442.
(1996). What was where? Memory for object locations. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 49A, 178–199.
(2008). Movement and visual coding: The structure of visuo-spatial working memory. Cognitive Processing, 9, 35–43.
(1996). Irrelevant pictures in visual working memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 49A, 200–215.
(1986). Movement and attention in visual working memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38A, 689–703.
(1982). Disruption of short-term memory by unattended speech: Implications for the structure of working memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 21, 150–164.
(1988). Movement and working memory – patterns and positions in space. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 40, 497–514.
(1988). Pragmatics of measuring recognition memory: Applications of dementia and amnesia. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 117, 34–50.
(2001). Storage of features, conjunctions, and objects in visual working memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 27, 92–114.
(2002). Binding in short-term visual memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 131, 48–64.
(2004). A detection theory account of change detection. Journal of Vision, 4, 1120–1135.
(2008). Discrete fixed-resoultion representations in visual working memory. Nature, 453, 233–235.
(2003). Spatio-temporal working-memory and short-term object-location tasks use different memory mechanisms. Acta Psychologica, 114, 41–65.
(