Investigating the neural mechanisms of visual contextual memory: from learning to exploitation
Final Report Abstract
This project started with the prospect of being able to learn about the oscillatory mechanisms of learning and exploiting contextual regularities in the contextual cueing paradigm. A seemingly inocuous modification of the original paradigm on which this project was built resulted in an almost total loss of behavioral effect. We characterized this loss in a behavioral study but it took a long time to realize this failure was due to the paradigm rather than to inadequate manipulations in the lab. The publication of this behavioral study is still in progress. In sum, we showed that the contextual cueing effect rests not only on faster search times in conditions where the context-target spatial relations are preserved, but also on slower reaction times when the layout is completely novel. In line with earlier works, this study suggests that the contextual cueing effect is more than an attentional guidance effect, as originally stated. At the outset of this study, I used a different paradigm to pursue the project. This paradigm led to mixed results which prevented further successful exploration with EEG and/or fMRI. Nevertheless, I was able to explore the reliance of learning and exploiting context on working memory. It appears that at least exploiting learned contextual regularities rely on available working memory ressources. Although promising, these results were not yet published.
Publications
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(2015). A practical guide to the selection of independent components of the electroencephalogram for artifact correction. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 250, 47–63
Chaumon, M., Bishop, D. V. M., & Busch, N. A.
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Implicit learning and exploiting of statistical regularities under working memory load. Workshop on active perceptual memory, Berlin 2015
Trapp, Busch and Chaumon
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Implicit learning of statistical regularities: it's not all automatic. Annual meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, Paris 2015
Chaumon, Trapp, Busch and Bar
