An information capacity limitation of visual short-term memory

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance

Volumn 40, Issue 6, 2014, Pages 2214-2242

  Sewell, David K ^a   Lilburn, Simon D ^a   Smith, Philip L ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE   (Australia)

Author keywords

Attention; Capacity limitations; Mathematical modeling; Visual short term memory

Indexed keywords

ATTENTION; HUMAN; MALE; ORIENTATION; PATTERN RECOGNITION; PERCEPTION; PERCEPTIVE DISCRIMINATION; PSYCHOPHYSICS; RECEPTIVE FIELD; SHORT TERM MEMORY; THEORETICAL MODEL; VISION;

ATTENTION; DISCRIMINATION (PSYCHOLOGY); FIELD DEPENDENCE-INDEPENDENCE; HUMANS; MALE; MEMORY, SHORT-TERM; MODELS, THEORETICAL; ORIENTATION; PATTERN RECOGNITION, VISUAL; PERCEPTUAL MASKING; PSYCHOPHYSICS; VISUAL PERCEPTION;

EID: 84925679621     PISSN: 00961523     EISSN: 19391277     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1037/a0037744     Document Type: Article

References (118)

1. Alvarez, G. A., & Cavanagh, P. (2004). The capacity of visual short-term memory is set both by visual information load and by number of objects. Psychological Science, 15, 106-111.
2. Anderson, D. E., Vogel, E. K., & Awh, E. (2011). Precision in visual working memory reaches a stable plateau when individual item limits are exceeded. Journal of Neuroscience, 31, 1128-1138.
3. Awh, E., Barton, B., & Vogel, E. K. (2007). Visual working memory represents a fixed number of items regardless of complexity. Psychological Science, 18, 622-628.
4. Barton, B., Ester, E. F., & Awh, E. (2009). Discrete resource allocation in visual working memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 35, 1359-1367.
5. Bays, P. M. (2014). Noise in neural populations accounts for errors in working memory. Journal of Neuroscience, 34, 3632-3645.
6. Bays, P. M., Catalao, R. F. G., & Husain, M. (2009). The precision of visual working memory is set by allocation of a shared resource. Journal of Vision, 9, 1-11.
7. Bays, P. M., Gorgoraptis, N., Wee, N., Marshall, L., & Husain, M. (2011). Temporal dynamics of encoding, storage, and reallocation of visual working memory. Journal of Vision, 11, 1-15.
8. Bays, P. M., & Husain, M. (2008). Dynamic shifts of limited working memory resources in human vision. Science, 321, 851-854.
9. Bays, P. M., & Husain, M. (2009). Response to comment on "Dynamic shifts of limited working memory resources in human vision." Science, 323, 877.
10. Bays, P. M., Wu, E. Y., & Husain, M. (2011). Storage and binding of object feature in visual working memory. Neuropsychologia, 49, 1622-1631.
11. Blackwell, H. R. (1953). Studies of the form of visual threshold data. Journal of the Optical Society of America, 43, 456-463.
12. Blackwell, H. R. (1963). Neural theories of simple visual discriminations. Journal of the Optical Society of America, 53, 129-160.
13. Bonnel, A. M., & Hafter, E. R. (1998). Divided attention between simultaneous auditory and visual signals. Perception&Psychophysics, 60, 179-190.
14. Bonnel, A. M., & Miller, J. (1994). Attentional effects on concurrent psychophysical discriminations: Investigations of a sample-size model. Perception&Psychophysics, 55, 162-179.
15. Brady, T. F., & Alvarez, G. A. (2011). Hierarchical encoding in visual working memory: Ensemble statistics bias memory for individual items. Psychological Science, 22, 384-392.
16. Buffalo, E. A., Fries, P., Landman, R., Liang, H., & Desimone, R. (2011). A backward progression of attentional effects in the ventral stream. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107, 361-365.
17. Bundesen, C. (1987). Visual attention: Race models for selection from multielement displays. Psychological Research, 49, 113-121.
18. Bundesen, C. (1990). A theory of visual attention. Psychological Review, 97, 523-547.
19. Bundesen, C., Kyllingsbæk, S., & Larsen, A. (2003). Independent encoding of colors and shapes from two stimuli. Psychonomic Bulletin&Review, 10, 474-479.
20. Bundesen, C., Pedersen, L. F., & Larsen, A. (1984). Measuring efficiency of selection from briefly exposed visual displays: A model for partial report. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception&Performance, 10, 329-339.
21. Busey, T. A., & Loftus, G. R. (1994). Sensory and cognitive components of visual information acquisition. Psychological Review, 101, 446-469.
22. Carrasco, M., & McElree, B. (2001). Covert attention accelerates the rate of visual information processing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 98, 5363-5367.
23. Carrasco, M., Penpeci-Talgar, C., & Eckstein, M. (2000). Spatial covert attention increases contrast sensitivity across the CSF: Support for signal enhancement. Vision Research, 40, 1203-1215.
24. Cooper, G. R., & McGillem, C. D. (1986). Probabilistic methods of signal and system analysis (2nd ed.). New York, NY: CBS Publishing.
25. Cowan, N. (2001). The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity. Behavioral&Brain Sciences, 24, 87-185.
26. Cowan, N. (2005). Working memory capacity. New York, NY: Psychology Press.
27. Cowan, N., Li, D., Moffitt, A., Becker, T. M., Martin, E. A., Saults, J. S., & Christ, S. E. (2011). A neural region of abstract working memory. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23, 2852-2863.
28. Cowan, N., & Rouder, J. N. (2009). Comment on "Dynamic shifts of limited working memory resources in human vision." Science, 323, 877.
29. Daugman, J. G. (1990). An information-theoretic view of analog representation in striate cortex. Computational Neuroscience, 2, 403-423.
30. Desimone, R., & Duncan, J. (1995). Neural mechanisms of selective visual attention. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 18, 193-222.
31. Donkin, C., Nosofsky, R. M., Gold, J. M., & Shiffrin, R. M. (in press). Discrete-slots models of visual working-memory response times. Psychological Review.
32. Downing, C. J. (1988). Expectancy and visual-spatial attention: Effects on perceptual quality. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 14, 188-202.
33. Duncan, J. (1984). Selective attention and the organization of visual information. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113, 501-517.
34. Eckstein, M. P., Thomas, J. P., Palmer, J., & Shimozaki, S. S. (2000). A signal detection model predicts the effects of set size on visual search accuracy for feature, conjunction, triple conjunction, and disjunction displays. Perception&Psychophysics, 62, 425-451.
35. Egly, R., Driver, J., & Rafal, R. D. (1994). Shifting visual attention between objects and locations: Evidence from normal and parietal lesion subjects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123, 161-177.
36. Engen, T. (1971). Psychophysics I. Discrimination and detection. In J. W. Kling&L. A. Riggs (Eds.), Woodworth and Schlosberg's experimental psychology (3rd ed., pp. 11-46). New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
37. Eriksen, C. W., & St. James, J. D. (1986). Visual attention within and around the field of focal attention: A zoom lens model. Perception & Psychophysics, 40, 225-240.
38. Eriksen, C. W., & Yeh, Y. Y. (1985). Allocation of attention in the visual field. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 11, 583-597.
39. Fisher, D. L. (1982). Limited-channel models of automatic detection: Capacity and scanning in visual search. Psychological Review, 89, 662-692.
40. Foley, N. C., Grossberg, S., & Mingolla, E. (2012). Neural dynamics of object-based multifocal visual spatial attention and priming: Object, cueing, useful-field-of-view, and crowding. Cognitive Psychology, 65, 77-117.
41. Fougnie, D., & Alvarez, G. A. (2011). Object features fail independently in visual working memory: Evidence for a probabilistic feature-store model. Journal of Vision, 11, 1-12.
42. Fougnie, D., Asplund, C. L., & Marois, R. (2010). What are the units of storage in visual working memory? Journal of Vision, 10, 1-11.
43. Fukuda, K., Vogel, E. K., Mayr, U., & Awh, E. (2010). Quantity, not quality: The relationship between fluid intelligence and working memory capacity. Psychonomic Bulletin&Review, 17, 673-679.
44. Graham, N. V. S. (1989). Visual pattern analyzers. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
45. Green, D. M., & Swets, J. A. (1966). Signal detection theory and psychophysics. New York, NY: Wiley.
46. Grossberg, S. (1980). How does a brain build a cognitive code? Psychological Review, 87, 1-51.
47. Grossberg, S. (1987a). The adaptive brain, I. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier.
48. Grossberg, S. (1987b). The adaptive brain, II. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier.
49. Grossberg, S. (1988). Nonlinear neural networks: Principles, mechanisms, and architectures. Neural Networks, 1, 17-61.
50. Hawkins, H. L., Hillyard, S. A., Luck, S. J., Mouloua, M., Downing, C. J., & Woodward, D. P. (1990). Visual attention modulates signal detectability. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 16, 802-811.
51. Ikkai, A., McCollough, A. W., & Vogel, E. K. (2010). Contralateral delay activity provides a neural measure of the number of representations in visual working memory. Journal of Neurophysiology, 103, 1963-1968.
52. Itti, L., & Koch, C. (2001). Computational modelling of visual attention. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2, 194-203.
53. Kyllingsbæk, S., & Bundesen, C. (2007). Parallel processing in a multifeature whole-report paradigm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 33, 64-82.
54. Lee, D. K., Koch, C., & Braun, J. (1997). Spatial vision thresholds in the near absence of attention. Vision Research, 37, 2409-2418.
55. Lee, J., & Maunsell, J. H. R. (2009). A normalization model of attentional modulation of single unit responses. PLoS ONE, 4, 1-13.
56. Li, Z. (2002). A saliency map in primary visual cortex. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6, 9-16.
57. Lindsay, P. H., Taylor, M. M., & Forbes, S. M. (1968). Attention and multidimensional discrimination. Perception&Psychophysics, 4, 113-117.
58. Liu, C. C., & Smith, P. L. (2009). Comparing time-accuracy curves: Beyond goodness-of-fit measures. Psychonomic Bulletin&Review, 16, 190-203.
59. Liu, C. C., Wolfgang, B. J., & Smith, P. L. (2009). Attentional mechanisms in simple visual detection: A speed-accuracy trade-off analysis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 35, 1329-1345.
60. Logan, G. D., & Bundesen, C. (2003). Clever homunculus: Is there an endogenous act of control in the explicit task-cuing procedure? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 29, 575-599.
61. Luck, S. J., & Vogel, E. K. (1997). The capacity of visual working memory for feature and conjunctions. Nature, 390, 279-281.
62. Macmillan, N. A., & Creelman, C. D. (1991). Detection theory: A user's guide. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
63. Mazyar, H., van den Berg, R., & Ma, W. J. (2012). Does precision decrease with set size? Journal of Vision, 12, 1-16.
64. Moore, C. M., Yantis, S., & Vaughan, B. (1998). Object-based visual selection: Evidence from perceptual completion. Psychological Science, 9, 104-110.
65. Müller, H. J., & Humphreys, G. W. (1991). Luminance-increment detection: Capacity-limited or not? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 17, 107-124.
66. Norman, D. A., & Bobrow, D. G. (1975). On data-limited and resourcelimited processes. Cognitive Psychology, 7, 44-64.
67. Orhan, A. E., & Jacobs, R. A. (2013). A probabilistic clustering theory of the organization of visual short-term memory. Psychological Review, 120, 297-328.
68. Palmer, J. (1990). Attentional limits on the perception and memory of visual information. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 16, 332-350.
69. Palmer, J. (1994). Set-size effects in visual search: The effect of attention is independent of the stimulus for simple tasks. Vision Research, 34, 1703-1721.
70. Palmer, J., Ames, C. T., & Lindsey, D. T. (1993). Measuring the effect of attention on simple visual search. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 19, 108-130.
71. Palmer, J., Verghese, P., & Pavel, M. (2000). The psychophysics of visual search. Vision Research, 40, 1227-1268.
72. Pashler, H. E. (1988). Familiarity and visual change detection. Perception & Psychophysics, 44, 369-378.
73. Phillips, W. A. (1974). On the distinction between sensory storage and short-term visual memory. Perception&Psychophysics, 16, 283-290.
74. Phillips, W. A., & Christie, D. F. M. (1977). Components of visual memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 29, 117-133.
75. Ratcliff, R., & Rouder, J. N. (2000). A diffusion model account of masking in two-choice letter identification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 26, 127-140.
76. Ratcliff, R., & Smith, P. L. (2010). Perceptual discrimination in static and dynamic noise: The temporal relation between perceptual encoding and decision making. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 139, 70-94.
77. Reynolds, J. H., & Heeger, D. J. (2009). The normalization model of attention. Neuron, 61, 168-185.
78. Rouder, J. N., Morey, R. D., Cowan, N., Zwilling, C. E., Morey, C. C., & Pratte, M. S. (2008). An assessment of fixed-capacity models of visual working memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105, 5975-5979.
79. Scharff, A., Palmer, J., & Moore, C. (2011). Extending the simultaneoussequential paradigm to measure perceptual capacity for features and words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 37, 813-833.
80. Sewell, D. K., & Smith, P. L. (2012). Attentional control in visual signal detection: Effects of abrupt-onset and no-onset stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 38, 1043-1068.
81. Shaw, M. L. (1980). Identifying attentional and decision-making components in information processing. In R. S. Nickerson (Ed.), Attention and performance VIII (pp. 277-296). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
82. Shibuya, H., & Bundesen, C. (1988). Visual selection from multielement displays: Measuring and modeling effects of exposure duration. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 14, 591-600.
83. Shiffrin, R. M., & Gardner, G. T. (1972). Visual processing capacity and attentional control. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 93, 72-82.
84. Smith, P. L. (1998). Attention and luminance detection: A quantitative analysis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24, 105-133.
85. Smith, P. L. (2000). Attention and luminance detection: Effects of cues, masks, and pedestals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 26, 1401-1420.
86. Smith, P. L. (2010). From Poisson shot noise to the integrated Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process: Neurally principled models of information accumulation in decision-making and response time. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 54, 266-283.
87. Smith, P. L., Ellis, R., Sewell, D. K., & Wolfgang, B. J. (2010). Cued detection with compound integration-interruption masks reveals multiple attentional mechanisms. Journal of Vision, 10, 1-28.
88. Smith, P. L., & McKenzie, C. R. L. (2011). Diffusive information accumulation by minimal recurrent neural models of decision-making. Neural Computation, 23, 2000-2031.
89. Smith, P. L., & Ratcliff, R. (2009). An integrated theory of attention and decision making in visual signal detection. Psychological Review, 116, 283-317.
90. Smith, P. L., Ratcliff, R., & Sewell, D. K. (2014). Modeling perceptual discrimination in dynamic noise: Time-changed diffusion and release from inhibition. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 54, 95-113.
91. Smith, P. L., Ratcliff, R., & Wolfgang, B. J. (2004). Attention orienting and the timecourse of perceptual decisions: Response time distributions with masked and unmasked displays. Vision Research, 44, 1297-1320.
92. Smith, P. L., & Sewell, D. K. (2013). A competitive interaction theory of attentional selection and decision-making in brief, multielement displays. Psychological Review, 120, 589-627.
93. Smith, P. L., & Wolfgang, B. J. (2004). The attentional dynamics of masked detection. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 30, 119-136.
94. Smith, P. L., & Wolfgang, B. J. (2007). Attentional mechanisms in visual signal detection: The effects of simultaneous and delayed noise and pattern masks. Perception&Psychophysics, 69, 1093-1104.
95. Smith, P. L., Wolfgang, B. J., & Sinclair, A. J. (2004). Mask-dependent attentional cuing effects in visual signal detection: The psychometric function for contrast. Perception&Psychophysics, 66, 1056-1075.
96. Sperling, G. (1960). The information available in brief visual presentations. Psychological Monographs, 74, 1-29.
97. Sperling, G., & Dosher, B. A. (1986). Strategy and optimization in human information processing. In K. Boff, L. Kaufman, & J. Thomas (Eds.), Handbook of perception and performance (pp. 1-65). New York, NY: Wiley.
98. Sperling, G., & Weichselgartner, E. (1995). Episodic theory of the dynamics of spatial attention. Psychological Review, 102, 503-532.
99. Swets, J. A. (1984). Mathematical models of attention. In R. Parasuraman & D. R. Davies (Eds.), Varieties of attention (pp. 183-242). New York: Academic Press.
100. Taylor, M. M., Lindsay, P. H., & Forbes, S. M. (1967). Quantification of shared capacity processing in auditory and visual discrimination. Acta Psychologica, 27, 223-229.
101. Thiele, J. E., Pratte, M. S., & Rouder, J. N. (2011). On perfect workingmemory performance with large numbers of items. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 18, 958-963.
102. Thomas, J. P., & Gille, J. (1979). Bandwidths of orientation channels in human vision. Journal of the Optical Society of America, 69, 652-660.
103. Todd, J. J., & Marois, R. (2004). Capacity limit of visual short-term memory in human posterior parietal cortex. Nature, 428, 751-754.
104. Townsend, J. T. (1972). Some results concerning the identifiability of parallel and serial processes. British Journal of Mathematical&Statistical Psychology, 25, 168-199.
105. van den Berg, R., Awh, E., & Ma, W. J. (2014). Factorial comparison of working memory models. Psychological Review, 121, 124-149.
106. van den Berg, R., Shin, H., Chou, W. C., George, R., & Ma, W. J. (2012). Variability in encoding precision accounts for visual short-term memory limitations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109, 8780-8785.
107. van den Berg, R.&Ma, W. J. (in press). "Plateau"-related summary statistics are uninformative for comparing working memory models. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics.
108. Vogel, E. K., & Machizawa, M. G. (2004). Neural activity predicts individual differences in visual working memory capacity. Nature, 428, 748-751.
109. Vogel, E. K., McCollough, A. W., & Machizawa, M. G. (2005). Neural measures reveal individual differences in controlling access to working memory. Nature, 438, 500-503.
110. Vogel, E. K., Woodman, G. F., & Luck, S. J. (2001). Storage of features, conjunctions, and objects in visual working memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 27, 92-114.
111. Vogel, E. K., Woodman, G. F., & Luck, S. J. (2006). The time course of consolidation in visual working memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 32, 1436-1451.
112. Wagenmakers, E. J., & Farrell, S. (2004). AIC model selection using Akaike weights. Psychonomic Bulletin&Review, 11, 192-196.
113. Watson, A. B. (1986). Temporal sensitivity. In K. R. Boff, L. Kaufman, & J. P. Thomas (Eds.), Handbook of perception and performance (pp. 6.1-6.85). New York, NY: Wiley.
114. Wilken, P., & Ma, W. J. (2004). A detection theory account of change detection. Journal of Vision, 4, 1120-1135.
115. Woodman, G. F., Vogel, E. K., & Luck, S. J. (2012). Flexibility in visual working memory: Accurate change detection in the face of irrelevant variations in position. Visual Cognition, 20, 1-28.
116. Xu, Y., & Chun, M. M. (2006). Dissociable neural mechanism supporting visual short-term memory for objects. Nature, 440, 91-95.
117. Yantis, S., & Jonides, J. (1984). Abrupt visual onsets and selective attention: Evidence from visual search. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception&Performance, 10, 601-621.
118. Zhang, W., & Luck, S. J. (2008). Discrete fixed-resolution representations in visual working memory. Nature, 453, 233-236.