Cargando…

Encode a Letter and Get Its Location for Free? Assessing Incidental Binding of Verbal and Spatial Features

Previous studies have demonstrated that when presented with a display of spatially arranged letters, participants seem to remember the letters’ locations when letters are the focus of a recognition test, but do not remember letters’ identity when locations are tested. This strong binding asymmetry s...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Delooze, Molly A., Langerock, Naomi, Macy, Robin, Vergauwe, Evie, Morey, Candice C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9221125/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35741572
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12060685
_version_ 1784732544041746432
author Delooze, Molly A.
Langerock, Naomi
Macy, Robin
Vergauwe, Evie
Morey, Candice C.
author_facet Delooze, Molly A.
Langerock, Naomi
Macy, Robin
Vergauwe, Evie
Morey, Candice C.
author_sort Delooze, Molly A.
collection PubMed
description Previous studies have demonstrated that when presented with a display of spatially arranged letters, participants seem to remember the letters’ locations when letters are the focus of a recognition test, but do not remember letters’ identity when locations are tested. This strong binding asymmetry suggests that encoding location may be obligatory when remembering letters, which requires explanation within theories of working memory. We report two studies in which participants focused either on remembering letters or locations for a short interval. At test, positive probes were either intact letter–location combinations or recombinations of an observed letter and another previously occupied location. Incidental binding is observed when intact probes are recognized more accurately or faster than recombined probes. Here, however, we observed no evidence of incidental binding of location to letter in either experiment, neither under conditions where participants focused on one feature exclusively for a block, nor where the to-be-remembered feature was revealed prior to encoding with a changing pre-cue, nor where the to-be-remembered feature was retro-cued and therefore unknown during encoding. Our results call into question the robustness of a strong, consistent binding asymmetry. They suggest that while incidental location-to-letter binding may sometimes occur, it is not obligatory.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-9221125
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-92211252022-06-24 Encode a Letter and Get Its Location for Free? Assessing Incidental Binding of Verbal and Spatial Features Delooze, Molly A. Langerock, Naomi Macy, Robin Vergauwe, Evie Morey, Candice C. Brain Sci Article Previous studies have demonstrated that when presented with a display of spatially arranged letters, participants seem to remember the letters’ locations when letters are the focus of a recognition test, but do not remember letters’ identity when locations are tested. This strong binding asymmetry suggests that encoding location may be obligatory when remembering letters, which requires explanation within theories of working memory. We report two studies in which participants focused either on remembering letters or locations for a short interval. At test, positive probes were either intact letter–location combinations or recombinations of an observed letter and another previously occupied location. Incidental binding is observed when intact probes are recognized more accurately or faster than recombined probes. Here, however, we observed no evidence of incidental binding of location to letter in either experiment, neither under conditions where participants focused on one feature exclusively for a block, nor where the to-be-remembered feature was revealed prior to encoding with a changing pre-cue, nor where the to-be-remembered feature was retro-cued and therefore unknown during encoding. Our results call into question the robustness of a strong, consistent binding asymmetry. They suggest that while incidental location-to-letter binding may sometimes occur, it is not obligatory. MDPI 2022-05-24 /pmc/articles/PMC9221125/ /pubmed/35741572 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12060685 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Delooze, Molly A.
Langerock, Naomi
Macy, Robin
Vergauwe, Evie
Morey, Candice C.
Encode a Letter and Get Its Location for Free? Assessing Incidental Binding of Verbal and Spatial Features
title Encode a Letter and Get Its Location for Free? Assessing Incidental Binding of Verbal and Spatial Features
title_full Encode a Letter and Get Its Location for Free? Assessing Incidental Binding of Verbal and Spatial Features
title_fullStr Encode a Letter and Get Its Location for Free? Assessing Incidental Binding of Verbal and Spatial Features
title_full_unstemmed Encode a Letter and Get Its Location for Free? Assessing Incidental Binding of Verbal and Spatial Features
title_short Encode a Letter and Get Its Location for Free? Assessing Incidental Binding of Verbal and Spatial Features
title_sort encode a letter and get its location for free? assessing incidental binding of verbal and spatial features
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9221125/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35741572
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12060685
work_keys_str_mv AT deloozemollya encodealetterandgetitslocationforfreeassessingincidentalbindingofverbalandspatialfeatures
AT langerocknaomi encodealetterandgetitslocationforfreeassessingincidentalbindingofverbalandspatialfeatures
AT macyrobin encodealetterandgetitslocationforfreeassessingincidentalbindingofverbalandspatialfeatures
AT vergauweevie encodealetterandgetitslocationforfreeassessingincidentalbindingofverbalandspatialfeatures
AT moreycandicec encodealetterandgetitslocationforfreeassessingincidentalbindingofverbalandspatialfeatures