title: Saccades elicit obligatory allocation of visual working memory.
abstract: In daily life, visual working memory (VWM) typically works in contexts in which people make frequent saccades. Here, we investigated whether people can effectively control the allocation of VWM when making a saccade. Subjects were required to make an intervening saccade in the process of a memory task. The saccade target was either a to-be-remembered item or an extra, not-to-be-remembered item. The results showed that memory performance was poorer when a saccade was made to the extra, not-to-be-remembered item, regardless of its similarity to the memory item(s). In contrast, when memorizing the items while remaining fixated, subjects had similar memory performance whether an extra, not-to-be-remembered item was present or not. Taken together, these results demonstrated that volitional control over VWM allocation is greatly impaired when a saccade is made, indicating that VWM contains an automatic part that cooperates with eye movements and is allocated to a saccade target obligatorily.
authors.affiliation: Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Na
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Rende
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Shui
authors.forename: Xiaojie
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Jiangang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Mowei
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shen
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D016011:Normal Distribution; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011930:Reaction Time; D012438:Saccades; D014836:Volition; D055815:Young Adult