Sensory Recruitment in Visual Short-Term Memory: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Sensory Visual Cortex Interference Using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Abstract

Visual short-term memory (VSTM) links perception with higher cognitive processes by maintaining visual information that is absent from the environment. Yet, it remains unclear if sensory visual cortex is a necessary component of the brain network that underlies short-term maintenance of visual information. Previous reviews remain inconclusive and open to interpretation. Here, we aimed to systematically identify and review studies that have investigated the role of the sensory visual cortex in VSTM using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a method that allows exploration of causal relationships, and to quantitatively explore the effect of TMS interference on the sensory visual cortex during VSTM using meta-analytic methodology. Thirteen studies were identified and qualitatively reviewed. Out of those, seven studies provided sufficient statistical data for meta-analysis and yielded a total of 30 effect sizes, which were included in the meta-analyses. Two meta-analyses were conducted, one regarding the encoding phase of VSTM (19 effect sizes), and one regarding the maintenance phase of VSTM (11 effect sizes). The results from the systematic review and the two meta-analyses indicate that the sensory visual cortex is likely involved in both the encoding and maintenance phase of VSTM. In some cases, evidence did not show significant effects of TMS, however, this is suggested to be due to low memory load or low perceptual task demands. Overall, these findings support the idea that sensory visual areas are part of the brain network responsible for successfully maintaining information in short-term memory when no physical stimulus is present in the environment.

Phosphene and Motor Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Thresholds Are Correlated: A Meta-Analytic Investigation

“…In the future, meta-scientific work could aim to develop RoB and other quality assessment tools, which will be utilized to evaluate basic experimental work. This is timely, considering the potential uprise of meta-analytic methods for basic science questions (see Mikolajewicz & Komarova, 2019;Phylactou, Traikapi, et al, 2022).…”

Causal evidence for the role of the sensory visual cortex in visual short-term memory maintenance

“…The repeated measures ANOVA will be performed using a random model with an r-scale = .83, according to recent meta-analytic findings estimating the effect size of sensory visual cortex TMS on signal detection and accuracy estimates during VSTM tasks (Phylactou et al, 2021). Each prior for the paired t-tests is described by a Cauchy distribution centered around zero (see Rouder et al, 2009).…”

“…Each prior for the paired t-tests is described by a Cauchy distribution centered around zero (see Rouder et al, 2009). The width parameter of each prior was calculated to correspond to the 90% probability of the effect size lying within the standardised differences (Hedge's g) of accuracies and signal detection estimates between TMS and a control condition reported in a recent meta-analysis on the topic (Phylactou et al, 2021). By considering the overall effect size (g = .83), the effect size for early TMS (up to 200 ms; g = .99), and the effect size for late TMS (after 200 ms; g = .65) from previous meta-analytic work (Phylactou et al, 2021), the width parameter of the Cauchy distribution was calculated to correspond to 0.132 for the 0 ms condition, to 0.156 for the 200 ms condition, and to 0.102 for the 1000 ms condition, respectively.…”