Integrated encoding of relations and objects in visual working memory

Comprehensive understanding of visual scenes necessitates grasping the relations among visual objects. Given the potentially pivotal role of visual working memory (VWM) in processing visual relations, it is important to investigate the representation of relations in VWM. In our previous study, we proposed the integrated storage hypothesis, postulating that relations and objects are stored together as an integrated structured representation in VWM. The present study aimed to test this hypothesis against the alternative separate encoding hypothesis by probing the irrelevant-distracting effect. Across three experiments, where participants memorized object shapes/colors while disregarding relations, an irrelevant-distracting effect was consistently observed across varying types of changes in relation and set sizes. Critically, recombining the probe with irrelevant relation from another memory item (Experiment 2) or reversing the relational roles of probed objects relative to the memory item (Experiment 3) were perceived as inconsistency with stored representations and impaired change detection. These findings supported the integrated storage hypothesis, indicating that the dynamic relations between the objects are automatically encoded alongside object identities to form an integrated structured representation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).