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Rapid updating of spatial working memory across saccades
Paul J Boon1, Silvia Zeni2, Jan Theeuwes3
1Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. p.j.boon@vu.nl.
Scientific Reports
|January 20, 2018
Summary
The brain rapidly updates memorized object locations across eye movements within 130 milliseconds. This location updating process is influenced by how well the object is remembered.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Oculomotor Research
- Visual Perception
Background:
- Maintaining object location awareness is crucial during eye movements, as retinal object positions shift.
- Updating memorized object locations across saccades (eye movements) is complex, especially when objects are not visually present.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the temporal dynamics of updating a memorized location across saccades.
- To utilize saccadic curvature as a measure for the timing of location updating.
Main Methods:
- Participants performed sequential saccades while maintaining a location in memory.
- Saccadic curvature of the second saccade was analyzed to determine the update time of the memorized location.
Main Results:
- Memorized locations were updated rapidly, within 130 ms after the first saccade.
- The saccades curved away from the updated spatial coordinates of the memorized location.
- The time-course of updating was similar to that of exogenous attention and depended on memory fidelity.
Conclusions:
- The oculomotor system quickly updates spatial representations of memorized locations across saccades.
- Saccadic curvature provides a sensitive measure for the time-course of spatial updating in memory.
- Memory strength influences the speed of updating spatial information during active vision.
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