The selective disruption of spatial working memory by eye movements.
In the late 1970s/early 1980s, Baddeley and colleagues conducted a series of experiments investigating the role of eye movements in visual working memory. Although only described briefly in a book, these studies have influenced a remarkable number of empirical and theoretical developments in fields ranging from experimental psychology to human neuropsychology to nonhuman primate electrophysiology. This paper presents, in full detail, three critical studies from this series, together with a recently performed study that includes a level of eye movement measurement and control that was not available for the older studies. Together, the results demonstrate several facts about the sensitivity of visuospatial working memory to eye movements. First, it is eye movement control, not movement per se, that produces the disruptive effects. Second, these effects are limited to working memory for locations and do not generalize to visual working memory for shapes. Third, they can be isolated to the storage/maintenance components of working memory (e.g., to the delay period of the delayed-recognition task). These facts have important implications for models of visual working memory.
Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA. postle@wisc.edu
Bradley R
BR
Postle
Christopher
C
Idzikowski
Sergio Della
SD
Sala
Robert H
RH
Logie
Alan D
AD
Baddeley
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004585:Electrooculography; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011930:Reaction Time; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014794:Visual Fields / Q000502:physiology