Catching a glimpse of working memory: top-down capture as a tool for measuring the content of the mind

Atten Percept Psychophys. 2012 Nov;74(8):1562-7. doi: 10.3758/s13414-012-0378-9.

Abstract

This article outlines a methodology for probing working memory (WM) content in high-level cognitive tasks (e.g., decision making, problem solving, and memory retrieval) by capitalizing on attentional and oculomotor biases evidenced in top-down capture paradigms. This method would be of great use, as it could measure the information resident in WM at any point in a task and, hence, track information use over time as tasks dynamically evolve. Above and beyond providing a measure of information occupancy in WM, such a method would benefit from sensitivity to the specific activation levels of individual items in WM. This article additionally forwards a novel fusion of standard free recall and visual search paradigms in an effort to assess the sensitivity of eye movements in top-down capture, on which this new measurement technique relies, to item-specific memory activation (ISMA). The results demonstrate eye movement sensitivity to ISMA in some, but not all, cases.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Attention* / physiology
  • Eye Movements*
  • Humans
  • Memory
  • Memory, Short-Term* / physiology
  • Mental Recall*
  • Models, Psychological
  • Problem Solving*
  • Reaction Time
  • Sensitivity and Specificity