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Neural evidence for the contribution of active suppression to efficient visual working memory

Neural evidence for the contribution of active suppression to efficient visual working memory
Neural evidence for the contribution of active suppression to efficient visual working memory
In order to efficiently process incoming visual information, selective attention acts as a filter that enhances relevant and suppresses irrelevant information. In this study, we used an event-related potential (ERP) approach with systematic lateralization to investigate enhancement and suppression during encoding of information into visual working memory (WM) separately. We used a change detection task in which observers had to memorize some items while ignoring other items. We found that the to-be-ignored items elicited a PD component in the ERP, suggesting that irrelevant information is actively suppressed from WM. The PD amplitude increased with distractor load and decreased with the ability to group distractors according to Gestalt principles. This suggests that the PD can be used as an indicator of how efficiently items can be suppressed from entering WM. Furthermore, while lateral memory-targets elicited a “traditional” CDA (starting ~300 ms), lateral memory-distractors elicited a sustained positivity contralateral to memory-distractors (CDAp, starting ~400 ms). In sum the results suggest that inhibition of irrelevant information is an important factor for efficient WM and is reflected in spontaneous (PD) and sustained suppression (CDAp).

529–543
Feldmann-Wustefeld, Tobias
ad65a041-3b03-4374-8483-2eb878a6c909
Vogel, Edward
6bf785d7-cdd3-46b7-8d7d-9f6795b9e5bc
Feldmann-Wustefeld, Tobias
ad65a041-3b03-4374-8483-2eb878a6c909
Vogel, Edward
6bf785d7-cdd3-46b7-8d7d-9f6795b9e5bc

Feldmann-Wustefeld, Tobias and Vogel, Edward (2019) Neural evidence for the contribution of active suppression to efficient visual working memory. Cerebral Cortex, 29 (2), 529–543. (doi:10.1093/cercor/bhx336).

Record type: Article

Abstract

In order to efficiently process incoming visual information, selective attention acts as a filter that enhances relevant and suppresses irrelevant information. In this study, we used an event-related potential (ERP) approach with systematic lateralization to investigate enhancement and suppression during encoding of information into visual working memory (WM) separately. We used a change detection task in which observers had to memorize some items while ignoring other items. We found that the to-be-ignored items elicited a PD component in the ERP, suggesting that irrelevant information is actively suppressed from WM. The PD amplitude increased with distractor load and decreased with the ability to group distractors according to Gestalt principles. This suggests that the PD can be used as an indicator of how efficiently items can be suppressed from entering WM. Furthermore, while lateral memory-targets elicited a “traditional” CDA (starting ~300 ms), lateral memory-distractors elicited a sustained positivity contralateral to memory-distractors (CDAp, starting ~400 ms). In sum the results suggest that inhibition of irrelevant information is an important factor for efficient WM and is reflected in spontaneous (PD) and sustained suppression (CDAp).

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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 30 November 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 20 January 2018
Published date: February 2019

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 424405
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/424405
PURE UUID: 562b8448-ce18-4b58-92c8-e7d613ebefbb

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Date deposited: 05 Oct 2018 11:37
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 21:29

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Contributors

Author: Tobias Feldmann-Wustefeld
Author: Edward Vogel

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