Bindings in working memory: The role of object-based attention

Gao, Zaifeng; Wang, Fan; Qiu, Fangfang; He, Kuifeng; Yang, Yue; Shen, Mowei

doi:10.3758/s13414-016-1227-z

Cited by 30 publications

(89 citation statements)

References 106 publications

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“…Using this approach, Allen, Baddeley, and Hitch () found that a concurrent backwards counting task or a verbal memory task impaired overall change detection performance, but did not have a selective impact on memory for feature bindings. These results were confirmed and extended in later studies with various concurrent tasks (Allen, Hitch, Mate, & Baddeley, ; Delvenne, Cleeremans, & Laloyaux, ; Morey & Bieler, ; Vergauwe, Langerock, & Barrouillet, ; Yeh, Yang, & Chiu, ) and were found to hold even when features were presented separately and had to be bound internally (Allen, Hitch, & Baddeley, ; Karlsen, Allen, Baddeley, & Hitch, ; but see Gao et al ., ). These results indicate that binding memory does not make specific demands on sustained attention (but see Brown & Brockmole, for a conflicting finding).…”

Section: Binding Features In Vwmmentioning

confidence: 97%

New perspectives on binding in visual working memory

Schneegans

Bays

2018

British J of Psychology

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How does visual working memory (WM) store the binding between different features of a visual object (like colour, orientation, and location), and does memorizing these bindings require additional resources beyond memorizing individual features? These questions have traditionally been addressed by comparing performance across different types of change detection task. More recently, experimental tasks such as analogue (cued) recall, combined with analysis methods including Bayesian hypothesis testing and formal model comparison, have shed new light on the properties of WM. A significant new perspective is that noise in neural representation limits the precision of recall, and several recent models incorporate this view to account for failures of binding in WM. We review the literature on feature binding with a focus on these new developments and discuss their implications for the interpretation of classical findings.

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Section: Binding Features In Vwmmentioning

confidence: 97%

New perspectives on binding in visual working memory

Schneegans

Bays

2018

British J of Psychology

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“…The passive view has been challenged by recent studies that have suggested that retaining bindings in WM is an active process requiring more object-based attention than retaining constituent features (Fougnie & Marois, 2009;Z. Gao et al, 2017;He, Li, Wu, Wan, Gao, & Shen, 2020;Lu, Ma, Zhao, Gao, & Shen, 2019;Shen et al, 2015).…”

Section: Does Retaining Binding Require More Attention Than Retainingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Specifically, we required the participants to memorize single features or bindings between them, and we then added a secondary task to the maintenance phase of WM to consume their object-based attention (Z. Gao et al, 2017;Lu et al, 2019;Shen et al, 2015). We predicted that a nonselective binding impairment would be observed; however, if a selective binding impairment emerged, that would imply that the previous selective binding impairment had just been an artifact of the testing procedure.…”

Section: Current Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The role of attention in retaining the binding of integral features in working memory

et al. 2020

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Previous studies have suggested that retaining bindings in working memory (WM) requires more object-based attention than retaining constituent features. However, we still need to address the object-based attention hypothesis to determine both the generality (Does the object-based attention hypothesis of binding apply to feature bindings other than those tested?) and the reality (Was the observed effect in previous studies an artifact of the testing process?). We addressed these two issues by focusing on the binding of integral features, which was ignored in previous studies. Integral features can be manipulated independently but cannot be attended to or processed independently of each other, and they are primarily perceived in a more unitary fashion. Consequently, integral-feature bindings should be processed as integrated units without the help of extra object-based attention. We examined whether or not the object-based attention hypothesis applied to integral-feature bindings (generality), and these results enabled us to check the reality of the hypothesis. In line with our prediction, we found that a secondary task consuming object-based attention did not selectively impair the binding performance (Experiments 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7). The absence of selective binding impairment was not attributable to the use of an invalid secondary task (Experiment 4), failure to memorize the binding between length and width (Experiment 6), tapping the incorrect type of attention (Experiment 6), the feasibility of feature categorization (Experiment 7), or poor task performance (Experiment 7). Overall, these results suggest that the object-based attention hypothesis does not fit for the integral-feature bindings, and that the pivotal role of object-based attention reported by previous studies was reliable.

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“…Rhodes and colleagues argued for a distinction between binding of extrinsic features (i.e., linking of distinct items or contextual features accompanying an item) and binding of features that define the intrinsic characteristics of an object (i.e., within-item binding) (see also Allen et al, 2013; Rhodes et al, 2015). Binding objects' intrinsic features appears to be an automatic process (Allen et al, 2006, 2009; Karlsen et al, 2010; but see Shen et al, 2015; Gao et al, 2017) that is largely spared by age (Parra et al, 2009b; Brown and Brockmole, 2010; Isella et al, 2015; Rhodes et al, 2015; Read et al, 2016; Brown et al, 2017). In contrast, binding extrinsic features requires more cognitive resources (e.g., associative functions of the medial temporal lobe), which appear to be more susceptible to the effects of age (Mitchell et al, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feature Binding of Common Everyday Items Is Not Affected by Age

Hoefeijzers

Hernández

Ríos

et al. 2017

Front. Aging Neurosci.

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There is a surge of studies confirming that old age spares the ability to bind in visual working memory (VWM) multiple features within singular object representations. Furthermore, it has been suggested that such ability may also be independent of the cultural background of the assessed individual. However, this evidence has been gathered with tasks that use arbitrary bindings of unfamiliar features. Whether age spares memory binding functions when the memoranda are features of everyday life objects remains less well explored. The present study investigated the influence of age, memory delay, and education, on conjunctive binding functions responsible for representing everyday items in VWM. We asked 32 healthy young and 41 healthy older adults to perform a memory binding task. During the task, participants saw visual arrays of objects, colours, or coloured objects presented for 6 s. Immediately after they were asked either to select the objects or the colours that were presented during the study display from larger sets of objects or colours, or to recombine them by selecting from such sets the objects and their corresponding colours. This procedure was repeated immediately after but this time providing a 30 s unfiled delay. We manipulated familiarity by presenting congruent and incongruent object-colour pairings. The results showed that the ability to bind intrinsic features in VWM does not decline with age even when these features belong to everyday items and form novel or well-known associations. Such preserved memory binding abilities held across memory delays. The impact of feature congruency on item-recognition appears to be greater in older than in younger adults. This suggests that long-term memory (LTM) supports binding functions carried out in VWM for familiar everyday items and older adults still benefit from this LTM support. We have expanded the evidence supporting the lack of age effects on VWM binding functions to new feature and object domains (i.e., everyday items). We have confirmed that education does not negatively impact on such ability at old age. Such results have important implications for the selection of culturally unbiased tests to screen for abnormal ageing trajectories.

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Bindings in working memory: The role of object-based attention

Cited by 30 publications

References 106 publications

New perspectives on binding in visual working memory

New perspectives on binding in visual working memory

The role of attention in retaining the binding of integral features in working memory

Feature Binding of Common Everyday Items Is Not Affected by Age

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