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People use less working memory (WM) in natural settings than in labs. They rely more on external information when environmental exploration becomes difficult, showing a preference for external data over internal WM.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

  • Working memory (WM) is crucial for bridging perception and behavior.
  • Laboratory studies extensively explored WM capacity but not its naturalistic use.
  • Understanding WM in real-world scenarios is vital for ecological validity.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the trade-off between WM reliance and external information gathering during immersive behavior.
  • To determine how locomotive demands influence WM utilization in naturalistic tasks.
  • To compare WM reliance in immersive tasks with capacity measures from laboratory settings.

Main Methods:

  • An adapted object-copying task was employed within a virtual reality (VR) environment.
  • Locomotive demands were manipulated to alter the effort of gathering environmental information.
  • Participant reliance on WM and encoding durations were measured in response to varying task demands.

Main Results:

  • WM reliance during immersive behavior was lower than typical laboratory WM capacity measures.
  • A trade-off was observed: increased locomotion and time investment led to greater WM reliance.
  • This reliance increased linearly and was linked to longer information encoding durations.

Conclusions:

  • Individuals tend to avoid using WM in ecological settings, preferring external information.
  • WM utilization increases with the effort required to gather information from the environment.
  • Immersive VR tasks are essential for understanding cognitive processes like WM in natural behavior.