Action-based updating of visual short-term memory

• Applicants: Dr. Sven Ohl; Professor Dr. Martin Rolfs
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2015 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 283703834

• Final Report Year: 2023

Final Report Abstract

Traditionally, visual working memory has been perceived as a passive storage system operating independently of ongoing actions. However, recent findings have expanded this perspective, proposing an active visual memory system where sensory information is intricately connected to ongoing actions, allowing for the prioritization of maintained content in visual working memory. In this project, we employed saccadic eye movements as a model for goal-directed actions and identified a robust selection mechanism in memory. This mechanism demonstrated remarkable consistency across various experiments, observers, eye movement directions, and task modalities (e.g., discrimination versus change detection tasks, analogue versus categorical memory reports). Saccadic selection in memory is time-dependent, with the strongest impact occurring for saccades prompted immediately after memory array offset and diminishing within a second. Notably, this selection process is automatic, effectively prioritizing content even when minimal information needed retention, and even if the saccade target location was less likely to be tested in a memory test. The consequence of saccadic selection in memory was a complete loss of memory representations rather than a loss in memory precision. Our project established saccadic selection in memory as a powerful mechanism for prioritizing behaviorally relevant memories within a capacity-limited memory system, thus demonstrating how actions shape cognition beyond the mere encoding of incoming sensory signals.

Publications

• Revealing the time course of signals influencing the generation of secondary saccades using Aalen’s additive hazards model. Vision Research, 124, 52-58.
  Ohl, Sven & Kliegl, Reinhold
  
• Setting and changing feature priorities in visual short-term memory. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 24(2), 453-458.
  Kalogeropoulou, Zampeta; Jagadeesh, Akshay V.; Ohl, Sven & Rolfs, Martin
  
• Chances and challenges for an active visual search perspective. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 40(2017).
  Ohl, Sven & Rolfs, Martin
  
• Saccadic eye movements impose a natural bottleneck on visual short-term memory.. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 43(5), 736-748.
  Ohl, Sven & Rolfs, Martin
  
• Selective enhancement of orientation tuning before saccades. Journal of Vision, 17(13), 2.
  Ohl, Sven; Kuper, Clara & Rolfs, Martin
  
• Saccadic selection of stabilized items in visuospatial working memory. Consciousness and Cognition, 64, 32-44.
  Ohl, Sven & Rolfs, Martin
  
• Active information sampling varies across the cardiac cycle. Psychophysiology, 56(5).
  Kunzendorf, Stella; Klotzsche, Felix; Akbal, Mert; Villringer, Arno; Ohl, Sven & Gaebler, Michael
  
• From icons to categories: The format of visual memory representations is task dependent. Perception, 48, 97–97
  Keweloh, B., Ohl, S. & Rolfs, M.
  
• Time-dependent saccadic selection in analogue and categorical visual short-term memory tasks. Journal of Vision, 19(10), 311c.
  Ohl, Sven & Rolfs, Martin
  
• Bold moves: Inevitable saccadic selection in visual short-term memory. Journal of Vision, 20(2), 11.
  Ohl, Sven & Rolfs, Martin
  
• Memory for action: a functional view of selection in visual working memory. Visual Cognition, 28(5-8), 388-400.
  Heuer, Anna; Ohl, Sven & Rolfs, Martin
  
• Moving fast and seeing slow? The visual consequences of vigorous movement. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 44(2021).
  Rolfs, Martin & Ohl, Sven
  
• Target-location rather than target-object specific saccadic selection in visual working memory. Perception, 51, 101–101
  Wirth, L., Shurygina, O., Rolfs, M. & Ohl, S.
  
• Visual short‐term memory‐related EEG components in a virtual reality setup. Psychophysiology, 60(11).
  Klotzsche, Felix; Gaebler, Michael; Villringer, Arno; Sommer, Werner; Nikulin, Vadim & Ohl, Sven
  
• Saccadic selection in visual working memory is robust across the visual field and linked to saccade metrics: Evidence from nine experiments and more than 100,000 trials.. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 153(2), 544-563.
  Ohl, Sven; Kroell, Lisa M. & Rolfs, Martin