Visual Working Memory for Observed Actions

Download or read book Visual Working Memory for Observed Actions written by Justin Newell Wood and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part 3 addresses a long-standing debate about how working memory stores object information, by showing that the storage capacity of visual working memory is subject to separate limits for color and shape information, independent of the number of objects on which those features appear. This indicates that working memory stores features from different dimensions in separate feature-specific memory stores. I show that resources from a separate spatial working memory system are needed to retain information about how features were organized into objects, but are not needed to retain information about the features themselves. Together, these results indicate that the features of objects are stored separately in working memory and linked together into integrated representations through spatial information. This architecture mirrors that of immediate perception, in which primary visual features are processed and represented separately and integrated through spatial information. Thus, immediate perception and visual working memory operate by means of a common architecture, such that spatial information keeps visual features organized as objects during successive stages of visual processing. These findings are discussed in relation to existing models of working memory.