The cost of making an eye movement: A direct link between visual working memory and saccade execution

Schut, Martijn J.; Stoep, Nathan Van der; Postma, Albert; Stigchel, Stefan Van der

doi:10.1167/17.6.15

Cited by 36 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…Although such effects are interesting, they do not directly relate to the topic of the present study. Moreover, we could introduce a parameter of distraction, e.g., auditory or visual distractors ( Schut et al, 2017 ), or a parallel subtask. That would allow for building a more precise and comprehensive model of the balance between memorization and active sampling of visual information.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The World as an External Memory: The Price of Saccades in a Sensorimotor Task

Melnik

Schüler

Rothkopf

et al. 2018

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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Theories of embodied cognition postulate that the world can serve as an external memory. This implies that instead of storing visual information in working memory the information may be equally retrieved by appropriate eye movements. Given this assumption, the question arises, how we balance the effort of memorization with the effort of visual sampling our environment. We analyzed eye-tracking data in a sensorimotor task where participants had to produce a copy of a LEGO®-blocks-model displayed on a computer screen. In the unconstrained condition, the model appeared immediately after eye-fixation on the model. In the constrained condition, we introduced a 0.7 s delay before uncovering the model. The model disappeared as soon as participants made a saccade outside of the Model Area. To successfully copy a model of 8 blocks participants made saccades to the Model Area on average 7.9 times in the unconstrained condition and 5.2 times in the constrained condition. However, the mean duration of a trial was 2.9 s (14%) longer in the constrained condition even when taking into account the delayed visibility of the model. In this study, we found evidence for an adaptive shift in subjects’ behavior toward memorization by introducing a price for a certain type of saccades. However, the response is not adaptive; it is maladaptive, as memorization leads to longer overall performance time.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The World as an External Memory: The Price of Saccades in a Sensorimotor Task

Melnik

Schüler

Rothkopf

et al. 2018

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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show abstract

“…In addition to position information, surface feature properties of the saccade target (e.g., color, shape) are used to establish correspondence across saccades (Demeyer, De Graef, Wagemans, & Verfaillie, 2010;Herwig & Schneider, 2014;Tas, Moore, & Hollingworth, 2012). Hollingworth and colleagues have argued that the presaccadic shift of spatial attention to the target Hoffman & Subramaniam, 1995;Kowler, Anderson, Dosher, & Blaser, 1995) leads to the selective encoding of target surface features (Moore & Fallah, 2004;Schut, Van der Stoep, Postma, & Van der Stigchel, 2017;Shao et al, 2010;Tas, Luck, & Hollingworth, 2016). This target representation is maintained trans-saccadically in visual working memory (VWM).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feature-based guidance of attention during post-saccadic selection

Hollingworth

Matsukura

2019

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Current models of trans-saccadic perception propose that, after a saccade, the saccade target object must be localized among objects near the landing position. However, the nature of the attentional mechanisms supporting this process is currently under debate. In the present study, we tested whether surface properties of the saccade target object automatically bias post-saccadic selection using a variant of the visual search task. Participants executed a saccade to a shape-singleton target in a circular array. During this primary saccade, the array sometimes rotated so that the eyes landed between the target and an adjacent distractor, requiring gaze correction. In addition, each object in the array had an incidental color value. On Switch trials, the target and adjacent distractor switched colors. The accuracy and latency of gaze correction to the target (measures that provide a direct index of target localization) were compared with a control condition in which no color switch occurred (No-switch trials). Gaze correction to the target was substantially impaired in the Switch condition. This result was obtained even when participants had substantial incentive to avoid encoding the color of the saccade target. In addition, similar effects were observed when the roles of the two feature dimensions (color and shape) were reversed. The results indicate that saccade target features are automatically encoded before a saccade, are retained in visual working memory across the saccade, and instantiate a featurebased selection operation when the eyes land, biasing attention toward objects that match target features.

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“…1 ). A small performance drop is expected in the saccade conditions relative to fixation conditions as the saccade target typically takes up about one item in memory 28 . The results clearly support the hypothesis that sensory memory items have been remapped.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Remapping high-capacity, pre-attentive, fragile sensory memory

Zerr

Gayet

Mulder

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

Self Cite

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Humans typically make several saccades per second. This provides a challenge for the visual system as locations are largely coded in retinotopic (eye-centered) coordinates. Spatial remapping, the updating of retinotopic location coordinates of items in visuospatial memory, is typically assumed to be limited to robust, capacity-limited and attention-demanding working memory (WM). Are pre-attentive, maskable, sensory memory representations (e.g. fragile memory, FM) also remapped? We directly compared trans-saccadic WM (tWM) and trans-saccadic FM (tFM) in a retro-cue change-detection paradigm. Participants memorized oriented rectangles, made a saccade and reported whether they saw a change in a subsequent display. On some trials a retro-cue indicated the to-be-tested item prior to probe onset. This allowed sensory memory items to be included in the memory capacity estimate. The observed retro-cue benefit demonstrates a tFM capacity considerably above tWM. This provides evidence that some, if not all sensory memory was remapped to spatiotopic (world-centered, task-relevant) coordinates. In a second experiment, we show backward masks to be effective in retinotopic as well as spatiotopic coordinates, demonstrating that FM was indeed remapped to world-centered coordinates. Together this provides conclusive evidence that trans-saccadic spatial remapping is not limited to higher-level WM processes but also occurs for sensory memory representations.

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The cost of making an eye movement: A direct link between visual working memory and saccade execution

Cited by 36 publications

References 78 publications

The World as an External Memory: The Price of Saccades in a Sensorimotor Task

The World as an External Memory: The Price of Saccades in a Sensorimotor Task

Feature-based guidance of attention during post-saccadic selection

Remapping high-capacity, pre-attentive, fragile sensory memory

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