Visual working memory in Parkinson's disease patients using real-world visual objects and perceptual organization
Xiyu Mo1, Yiying Huang2, Ke Zhang1
1Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-Sen University, No. 132 Waihuan Dong Road, Guangzhou, 510000, China.
BMC Psychology
|May 15, 2026
Summary
Parkinson's disease (PD) patients struggle with visual working memory for real objects but benefit from Gestalt organization, suggesting intact bottom-up processing despite high-level cognitive deficits.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neurology
Background:
- Parkinson's disease (PD) is associated with working memory impairments.
- The impact of memory item characteristics on visual working memory in PD remains unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effects of real-world objects and Gestalt organization on visual working memory in PD patients.
- To compare PD patients' performance with healthy controls.
Main Methods:
- Utilized real-world objects and Gestalt organization as stimuli.
- Assessed visual working memory performance under varying memory loads and feature relevance.
Main Results:
- PD patients showed deficits with real objects, even at low memory loads, indicating reduced capacity.
- PD patients benefited from Gestalt organization when memorizing task-relevant orientations, but not irrelevant colors.
Conclusions:
- PD patients lack top-down modulation benefits from real-world objects.
- Bottom-up perceptual grouping via Gestalt organization remains intact in PD.
- Reveals a divergence in visual and cognitive abilities in PD.
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