title: Why some colors appear more memorable than others: A model combining categories and particulars in color working memory.
abstract: Categorization with basic color terms is an intuitive and universal aspect of color perception. Yet research on visual working memory capacity has largely assumed that only continuous estimates within color space are relevant to memory. As a result, the influence of color categories on working memory remains unknown. We propose a dual content model of color representation in which color matches to objects that are either present (perception) or absent (memory) integrate category representations along with estimates of specific values on a continuous scale ("particulars"). We develop and test the model through 4 experiments. In a first experiment pair, participants reproduce a color target, both with and without a delay, using a recently influential estimation paradigm. In a second experiment pair, we use standard methods in color perception to identify boundary and focal colors in the stimulus set. The main results are that responses drawn from working memory are significantly biased away from category boundaries and toward category centers. Importantly, the same pattern of results is present without a memory delay. The proposed dual content model parsimoniously explains these results, and it should replace prevailing single content models in studies of visual working memory. More broadly, the model and the results demonstrate how the main consequence of visual working memory maintenance is the amplification of category related biases and stimulus-specific variability that originate in perception.
authors.affiliation: Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis.
authors.forename: Gi-Yeul
authors.initials: GY
authors.lastname: Bae
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Olkkonen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey.
authors.forename: Sarah R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Allred
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.
authors.forename: Jonathan I
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Flombaum
mesh_terms: D003116:Color; D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010775:Photic Stimulation