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Beyond flatland: naturalistic three-dimensional stimuli and visual working memory processing
Gilad Schrift1, Shachar Lando2, Roy Luria1,2
1Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 69978 Israel.
Virtual Reality
|March 27, 2026
Summary
Visual working memory (VWM) performance is similar for 2D and 3D objects, but 3D stimuli slow down responses as memory load increases. This suggests depth processing adds cognitive costs, especially with more information.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive psychology
- Neuroscience
- Human-computer interaction
Background:
- Visual working memory (VWM) stores and manipulates visual information, but has limited capacity.
- Most VWM research uses 2D stimuli, neglecting real-world depth cues.
- Depth may improve VWM via perceptual enrichment but could also increase cognitive load.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how stimulus dimensionality (2D vs. 3D) affects VWM performance.
- To examine the impact of memory load on VWM for 2D and 3D stimuli.
- To understand the cognitive costs associated with processing depth in VWM.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a virtual reality change detection task.
- Presented ecologically valid 2D and 3D objects as stimuli.
- Varied memory loads to assess performance differences.
Main Results:
- Accuracy in VWM was comparable for 2D and 3D stimuli.
- Response times for 3D stimuli increased more significantly with higher memory loads compared to 2D stimuli.
- Higher memory loads amplified processing costs for 3D objects.
Conclusions:
- While 3D stimuli may offer perceptual benefits, they incur processing costs in VWM.
- These depth-related costs become more pronounced under high memory loads.
- Increased neural resources may be required for depth processing in demanding VWM tasks.
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