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The Influence of Active Removal from Working Memory on Serial Dependence.

Jiangang Shan¹, Bradley R Postle^1,2

¹Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, US.

Journal of Cognition

|September 8, 2022

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Information can be actively removed from working memory (WM). Active removal, prompted by overlapping stimuli, causes a repulsive bias, suggesting perceptual adaptation, unlike passive attention withdrawal which causes attraction.

Keywords:

Attention Cognitive Control Working memory

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience

Background:

Flexible control of working memory (WM) involves removing irrelevant information.
Mechanisms for information removal include passive attention withdrawal and active removal.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if actively removing information from WM induces a repulsive bias.
To test if this repulsive bias is indicative of adaptation-like changes in perceptual circuitry.

Main Methods:

A preliminary study paired multi-item WM tasks with single-item delayed recall.
Participants identified one of two memoranda as irrelevant.
Stimulus overlap between the irrelevant memory item (IMI) and a subsequent item manipulated active removal versus attention withdrawal.

Main Results:

In the no-overlap condition, the IMI exerted an attractive bias, consistent with passive attention withdrawal.
In the overlap condition, an unexpected repulsive bias was observed, suggesting active removal.
A subsequent lab-based experiment confirmed a repulsive bias in the overlap condition.

Conclusions:

Active removal of information from WM, triggered by stimulus overlap, induces a repulsive bias.
This repulsive bias provides evidence for adaptation-like mechanisms in perceptual circuitry during active WM updating.