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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 10, 2026

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments

Published on: January 23, 2017

Feature misbinding underlying serial-order effects of visuospatial working memory.

Linjing Jiang^1,2, Jennifer Tepan^3,4, Anastasiia Khibovska^3,5

¹Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.

Journal of Vision

|July 9, 2026

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Serial-position effects in visual working memory arise from misbinding item locations and their order, not reduced memory precision. This impacts how we recall visual information sequentially.

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Last Updated: Jul 10, 2026

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Neuroscience
Visual Cognition
Psychology

Background:

Accurate serial order processing of visual information is crucial for cognition.
Primacy and recency effects are observed in visual working memory recall tasks.
Debate exists on whether these effects stem from representational precision or feature misbinding.

Purpose of the Study:

Investigate the sources of serial-position effects in visuospatial working memory.
Differentiate between variable representational precision and location-serial-position misbinding.
Utilize eye tracking and statistical modeling for detailed analysis.

Main Methods:

Conducted two eye-tracking experiments with 92 participants.
Measured memory-guided saccade latency and endpoint error.
Employed order cues and quadrant cues to probe memory retrieval.

Main Results:

Primacy and recency effects were evident in endpoint error, latency, and transposition error under the order-cue condition.
These effects were absent in the quadrant-cue condition.
A swap model better explained data with order cues, while a standard model fit quadrant-cue data.

Conclusions:

Visuospatial working memory representations vary across serial positions.
The primary cause is location-serial-position misbinding, not variable memory precision.
Findings clarify the mechanisms underlying serial-position effects in visual memory.