Visual working memory capacity: From psychophysics and neurobiology to individual differences

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

Volumn 17, Issue 8, 2013, Pages 391-400

  Luck, Steven J ^a   Vogel, Edward K ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF OREGON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ANALOGICAL REASONING; COGNITIVE ABILITY; INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES; INFINITELY DIVISIBLE; MEMORY CAPACITY; NEURAL NETWORK MODEL; RECENT RESEARCHES; STORAGE CAPACITY;

COGNITIVE SYSTEMS;

COGNITION; EVENT RELATED POTENTIAL; FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING; HUMAN; INTELLECT; LEARNING; MEMORY CONSOLIDATION; MENTAL CAPACITY; MENTAL TASK; NERVE CELL; NEUROBIOLOGY; POSTSYNAPTIC POTENTIAL; PSYCHOPHYSICS; RETINA IMAGE; REVIEW; SACCADIC EYE MOVEMENT; SPATIAL MEMORY; TASK PERFORMANCE; VISUAL CORTEX; VISUAL INFORMATION; VISUAL MEMORY; WORKING MEMORY;

HUMANS; INDIVIDUALITY; MEMORY, SHORT-TERM; NEUROBIOLOGY; PHOTIC STIMULATION; PSYCHOPHYSICS; VISUAL PATHWAYS; VISUAL PERCEPTION;

EID: 84880938538     PISSN: 13646613     EISSN: 1879307X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2013.06.006     Document Type: Review

References (83)

1. Anderson J.R., et al. ACT-R: a theory of higher level cognition and its relation to visual attention. Hum. Comput. Interact. 1997, 12:439-462.
2. Meyer D.E., Kieras D.E. A computational theory of executive cognitive processes and multiple-task performance: part 1. Basic mechanisms. Psychol. Rev. 1997, 104:3-65.
3. Kyllonen P.C., Christal R.E. Reasoning ability is (little more than) working-memory capacity?!. Intelligence 1990, 14:389-433.
4. Engle R.W., et al. Working memory, short-term memory, and general fluid intelligence: a latent-variable approach. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 1999, 128:309-331.
5. Simons D.J., Levin D.T. Change blindness. Trends Cogn. Sci. 1997, 1:261-267.
6. Simons D.J., Rensink R.A. Change blindness: past, present, and future. Trends Cogn. Sci. 2005, 9:16-20.
7. Phillips W.A. On the distinction between sensory storage and short-term visual memory. Percept. Psychophys. 1974, 16:283-290.
8. Luck S.J., Vogel E.K. The capacity of visual working memory for features and conjunctions. Nature 1997, 390:279-281.
9. Irwin D.E. Information integration across saccadic eye movements. Cogn. Psychol. 1991, 23:420-456.
10. Luck S.J. Visual short-term memory. Visual Memory 2008, 43-85. Oxford University Press. S.J. Luck, A. Hollingworth (Eds.).
11. Gibson B., et al. Qualitative similarities in the visual short-term memory of pigeons and people. Psychonom. Bull. Rev. 2011, 18:979-984.
12. Kyllingsbaek S., Bundesen C. Changing change detection: improving the reliability of measures of visual short-term memory capacity. Psychonom. Bull. Rev. 2009, 16:1000-1010.
13. Johnson M.K., et al. The relationship between working memory capacity and broad measures of cognitive ability in healthy adults and people with schizophrenia. Neuropsychology 2013, 27:220-229.
14. Fukuda K., et al. Quantity, not quality: the relationship between fluid intelligence and working memory capacity. Psychonom. Bull. Rev. 2010, 17:673-679.
15. Lin P-H., Luck S.J. Proactive interference does not meaningfully distort visual working memory capacity estimates in the canonical change detection task. Front. Psychol. 2012, 3:42.
16. Hartshorne J.K. Visual working memory capacity and proactive interference. PLoS ONE 2008, 3:e2716.
17. Shipstead Z., Engle R.W. Interference within the focus of attention: working memory tasks reflect more than temporary maintenance. J. Exp. Psychol. Learn. Mem. Cogn. 2013, 39:277-289.
18. Jeneson A., et al. Visual working memory capacity and the medial temporal lobe. J. Neurosci. 2012, 32:3584-3589.
19. Olson I.R., et al. Working memory for conjunctions relies on the medial temporal lobe. J. Neurosci. 2006, 26:4596-4601.
20. Fuster J.M., Jervey J.P. Neuronal firing in the inferotemporal cortex of the monkey in a visual memory task. J. Neurosci. 1982, 2:361-375.
21. Miller E.K., Desimone R. A neural mechanism for working and recognition memory in inferior temporal cortex. Science 1991, 254:1377-1379.
22. Vogel E.K., Machizawa M.G. Neural activity predicts individual differences in visual working memory capacity. Nature 2004, 428:748-751.
23. Vogel E.K., et al. Neural measures reveal individual differences in controlling access to working memory. Nature 2005, 438:500-503.
24. Todd J.J., Marois R. Posterior parietal cortex activity predicts individual differences in visual short-term memory capacity. Cogn. Affect. Behav. Neurosci. 2005, 5:144-155.
25. Todd J.J., Marois R. Capacity limit of visual short-term memory in human posterior parietal cortex. Nature 2004, 428:751-754.
26. Henderson J.M. Eye movements and visual memory. Visual Memory 2008, 87-121. Oxford University Press. S.J. Luck, A. Hollingworth (Eds.).
27. Irwin D.E. Memory for position and identity across eye movements. J. Exp. Psychol. Learn. Mem. Cogn. 1992, 18:307-317.
28. Irwin D.E., Andrews R.V. Integration and accumulation of information across saccadic eye movements. Attention and Performance XVI 1996, 125-155. MIT Press. T. Inui, J.L. McClelland (Eds.).
29. Hollingworth A., et al. Understanding the function of visual short-term memory: transsaccadic memory, object correspondence, and gaze correction. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 2008, 137:163-181.
30. Mannan S.K., et al. Early oculomotor capture by new onsets driven by the contents of working memory. Vis. Res. 2010, 50:1590-1597.
31. Hollingworth A., et al. Visual working memory modulates rapid eye movements to simple onset targets. Psychol. Sci. 2013, 24:790-796.
32. Carlisle N.B., et al. Attentional templates in visual working memory. J. Neurosci. 2011, 31:9315-9322.
33. Woodman G.F., et al. The role of working memory representations in the control of attention. Cereb. Cortex 2007, 17:i118-i124.
34. Woodman G.F., et al. Visual search remains efficient when visual working memory is full. Psychol. Sci. 2001, 12:219-224.
35. Luria R., Vogel E.K. Visual search demands dictate reliance on working memory storage. J. Neurosci. 2011, 31:6199-6207.
36. Anderson D.E., et al. A common discrete resource for visual working memory and visual search. Psychol. Sci. 2013, 24:929-938.
37. Drew T., et al. Delineating the neural signatures of tracking spatial position and working memory during attentive tracking. J. Neurosci. 2011, 31:659-668.
38. Drew T., Vogel E.K. Neural measures of individual differences in selecting and tracking multiple moving objects. J. Neurosci. 2008, 28:4183-4191.
39. Tsubomi H., et al. Neural limits to representing objects still within view. J. Neurosci. 2013, 33:8257-8263.
40. Vogel E.K., Awh E. How to exploit diversity for scientific gain: using individual differences to constrain cognitive theory. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 2008, 17:171-176.
41. Awh E., et al. Visual working memory represents a fixed number of items regardless of complexity. Psychol. Sci. 2007, 18:622-628.
42. Alvarez G.A., Cavanagh P. The capacity of visual short-term memory is set both by information load and by number of objects. Psychol. Sci. 2004, 15:106-111.
43. Brady T.F., et al. A review of visual memory capacity: beyond individual items and toward structured representations. J. Vis. 2011, 11:4.
44. van den Berg R., et al. Variability in encoding precision accounts for visual short-term memory limitations. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2012, 109:8780-8785.
45. Rouder J.N., et al. An assessment of fixed-capacity models of visual working memory. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2008, 105:5975-5979.
46. Bays P.M., Husain M. Dynamic shifts of limited working memory resources in human vision. Science 2008, 321:851-854.
47. Wilken P., Ma W.J. A detection theory account of change detection. J. Vis. 2004, 4:1120-1135.
48. Zhang W., Luck S.J. Discrete fixed-resolution representations in visual working memory. Nature 2008, 453:233-235.
49. Anderson D.E., et al. Precision in visual working memory reaches a stable plateau when individual item limits are exceeded. J. Neurosci. 2011, 31:1128-1138.
50. Anderson D.E., Awh E. The plateau in mnemonic resolution across large set sizes indicates discrete resource limits in visual working memory. Atten. Percept. Psychophys. 2012, 74:891-910.
51. Xu Y., Chun M.M. Dissociable neural mechanisms supporting visual short-term memory for objects. Nature 2006, 440:91-95.
52. Thiele J.E., et al. On perfect working-memory performance with large numbers of items. Psychonom. Bull. Rev. 2011, 18:958-963.
53. Sims C.R., et al. An ideal observer analysis of visual working memory. Psychol. Rev. 2012, 119:807-830.
54. Saults J.S., Cowan N. A central capacity limit to the simultaneous storage of visual and auditory arrays in working memory. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 2007, 136:663-684.
55. Franconeri S.L., et al. Flexible cognitive resources: competitive content maps for attention and memory. Trends Cogn. Sci. 2013, 17:134-141.
56. Wei Z., et al. From distributed resources to limited slots in multiple-item working memory: a spiking network model with normalization. J. Neurosci. 2012, 32:11228-11240.
57. Lin P-H., Luck S.J. The influence of similarity on visual working memory representations. Vis. Cogn. 2008, 17:356-372.
58. Zhang W., Luck S.J. The number and quality of representations in working memory. Psychol. Sci. 2011, 22:1434-1441.
59. Gold J.M., et al. Working memory for visual features and conjunctions in schizophrenia. J. Abnorm. Psychol. 2003, 112:61-71.
60. Gold J.M., et al. Intact attentional control of working memory encoding in schizophrenia. J. Abnorm. Psychol. 2006, 115:658-673.
61. McNab F., Klingberg T. Prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia control access to working memory. Nat. Neurosci. 2008, 11:103-107.
62. Fukuda K., Vogel E.K. Human variation in overriding attentional capture. J. Neurosci. 2009, 29:8726-8733.
63. Lee E-Y., et al. Visual working memory deficits in patients with Parkinson's disease are due to both reduced storage capacity and impaired ability to filter out irrelevant information. Brain 2010, 133:2677-2689.
64. Jost K., et al. Are old adults just like low working memory young adults? Filtering efficiency and age differences in visual working memory. Cereb. Cortex 2011, 21:1147-1154.
65. Cashdollar N., et al. Prolonged disengagement from attentional capture in normal aging. Psychol. Aging 2013, 28:77-86.
66. Leonard C.J., et al. Toward the neural mechanisms of reduced working memory capacity in schizophrenia. Cereb. Cortex 2013, 23:1582-1592.
67. Hahn B., et al. Failure of schizophrenia patients to overcome salient distractors during working memory encoding. Biol. Psychiatry 2010, 68:603-609.
68. Mayer J.S., et al. Impaired contingent attentional capture predicts reduced working memory capacity in schizophrenia. PLoS ONE 2012, 7:e48586.
69. Deco G., Rolls E.T. Neural mechanisms of visual memory: a neurocomputational perspective. Visual Memory 2008, 247-289. Oxford University Press. S.J. Luck, A. Hollingworth (Eds.).
70. Lisman J.E., Idiart M.A.P. Storage of 7±2 short-term memories in oscillatory subcycles. Science 1995, 267:1512-1515.
71. Raffone A., Wolters G. A cortical mechanism for binding in visual working memory. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 2001, 13:766-785.
72. Luck S.J., Vogel E.K. Response from Luck and Vogel. Trends Cogn. Sci. 1998, 2:78-80.
73. Pesaran B., et al. Temporal structure in neuronal activity during working memory in macaque parietal cortex. Nat. Neurosci. 2002, 5:805-811.
74. Liebe S., et al. Theta coupling between V4 and prefrontal cortex predicts visual short-term memory performance. Nat. Neurosci. 2012, 15:456-462. S451-452.
75. Lee H., et al. Phase locking of single neuron activity to theta oscillations during working memory in monkey extrastriate visual cortex. Neuron 2005, 45:147-156.
76. Sauseng P., et al. Brain oscillatory substrates of visual short-term memory capacity. Curr. Biol. 2009, 19:1846-1852.
77. Siegel M., et al. Phase-dependent neuronal coding of objects in short-term memory. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2009, 106:21341-21346.
78. van Dijk H., et al. Modulations in oscillatory activity with amplitude asymmetry can produce cognitively relevant event-related responses. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2013, 107:900-905. 10.1073/pnas.0908821107.
79. Hyun J-S., et al. The comparison of visual working memory representations with perceptual inputs. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 2009, 35:1140-1160.
80. Pashler H. Familiarity and visual change detection. Percept. Psychophys. 1988, 44:369-378.
81. Cowan N., et al. On the capacity of attention: its estimation and its role in working memory and cognitive aptitudes. Cogn. Psychol. 2005, 51:42-100.
82. Rouder J.N., et al. How to measure working memory capacity in the change detection paradigm. Psychonom. Bull. Rev. 2011, 18:324-330.
83. Morey R.D., Morey C.C. WoMMBAT: A user interface for hierarchical Bayesian estimation of working memory capacity. Behav. Res. Methods 2011, 43:1044-1065.