Capacity limits to representing objects still within view

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26705010
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Experimental psychology
• Research Institution: University of Toyama
• Principal Investigator: Tsubomi Hiroyuki 富山大学, 人文学部, 准教授 (70447986)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: ワーキングメモリ / 意識 / 忘却 / マスキング / 脳波

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The capacity of visual working memory is limited to representing three simple objects that no longer exist in the external environment. Interestingly, we previously found that this severe capacity limit also applies to representing objects that remained visible (Tsubomi, Fukuda, Watanabe, & Vogel, 2013). Here, we further found that only a few object worth of visual information can be maintained robustly against the interference at a given moment regardless of whether the objects are present or not. Meanwhile, there is another type of large-capacity visual representations that are vulnerable to interference and decay over time after the objects disappear. In addition, we also found that the capacity-limited representations are completely removed within 1 second after its use without necessitating the encoding of new visual input when they are deemed no-longer necessary.

Free Research Field

認知神経科学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

私たちは視野の隅々まではっきり見えているという直感を抱くが、実際には、意識的に扱うことのできる対象や一時的に記憶（ワーキングメモリ）操作できる対象は空間的にも時間的にも極めて限られている。本研究では、この容量制約の心的・脳機序について検討した。このような認知機能の基礎メカニズムを検討することは、視覚意識の解明につながる手がかりとなることが期待される。