title: Crowdsourced single-trial probes of visual working memory for irrelevant features.
abstract: We measured the precision with which an irrelevant feature of a relevant object is stored in visual short-term memory. In each experiment, 600 online subjects each completed 30 trials in which the same feature (orientation or color) was relevant, followed by a single surprise trial in which the other feature was relevant. Pooling data across all subjects, we find in a delayed-estimation task but not in a change localization task that the irrelevant feature is retrieved, but with much lower precision than when the same feature is relevant: The irrelevant/relevant precision ratio was 3.8% for orientation and 20.4% for color.
authors.forename: Hongsup
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shin
authors.forename: Wei Ji
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Ma
mesh_terms: D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation