기억 항목 간 근접성이 변화할 때 항목 간 색상 반복이 시각작업기억 수행에 미치는 영향

초록

The aim of this study is to understand the principle by which redundancy in stimuli enhances performance in visual working memory (VWM). While improvements in VWM performance due to stimulus repetition have traditionally been interpreted as the result of focused attention based on Gestalt principles, we hypothesized that the memory compression effect proposed by Brady, Konkle, and Alvarez (2009) may also contribute to improved VWM performance through stimulus repetition. To test this, we conducted two experiments using a change detection task, manipulating the item set size and dividing the memory array conditions into: a no-repetition control (NR), a MR_T(memory repeated then tested) condition where the test stimulus is one of the repeated colors, and a MR_NT(memory repeated then tested elsewhere) condition where the test stimulus is a unique color (MR_NT). In Experiment 1, we examined whether the improvement in VWM performance due to repetition was not solely the result of focused attention by presenting repeated colors without controlling for their spatial proximity. The results showed that in the setsize 3, the MR_NT condition led to better VWM performance than the NR condition, suggesting that memory compression can enhance memory efficiency beyond the focused attention effect predicted by Gestalt theory. Experiment 2 subdivided the MR condition based on the spatial proximity (Near/Far) of the repeated colors to assess the potential offsetting effects between focused attention and memory efficiency when proximity was uncontrolled in Experiment 1. Results replicated the compression-based enhancement in the setsize 3(MR_NT_N > NR), but this effect disappeared as the number of items increased. These findings suggest that with a higher level of stimulus complexity (i.e., setsize 5 or 7), the potential benefit of memory compression for uniquely colored items in the MR_NT condition is ultimately influenced by the focused attention effect shaped by the spatial configuration of stimuli.

키워드