Perceptual similarity judgments do not predict the distribution of errors in working memory.
View / Open Files
Publication Date
2022-11-28Journal Title
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn
ISSN
0278-7393
Publisher
American Psychological Association (APA)
Type
Article
This Version
AM
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Tomić, I., & Bays, P. M. (2022). Perceptual similarity judgments do not predict the distribution of errors in working memory.. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001172
Abstract
Population coding models provide a quantitative account of visual working memory (VWM) retrieval errors with a plausible link to the response characteristics of sensory neurons. Recent work has provided an important new perspective linking population coding to variables of signal detection, including d-prime, and put forward a new hypothesis: that the distribution of recall errors on, for example, a color wheel, is a consequence of the psychological similarity between points in that stimulus space, such that the exponential-like psychophysical distance scaling function can fulfil the role of population tuning and obviate the need to fit a tuning width parameter to recall data. Using four different visual feature spaces, we measured psychophysical similarity and memory errors in the same participants. Our results revealed strong evidence for a common source of variability affecting similarity judgments and recall estimates but did not support any consistent relationship between psychophysical similarity functions and VWM errors. At the group level, the responsiveness functions obtained from the psychophysical similarity task diverged strongly from those that provided the best fit to working memory errors. At the individual level, we found convincing evidence against an association between observed and best-fitting similarity functions. Finally, our results show that the newly proposed exponential-like responsiveness function has in general no advantage over the canonical von Mises (circular normal) function assumed by previous population coding models. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
Keywords
neural resource model, psychophysical scaling, short-term memory
Sponsorship
Wellcome Trust (106926/A/15/Z)
Wellcome Trust (106926/Z/15/Z)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001172
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/338040
Statistics
Total file downloads (since January 2020). For more information on metrics see the
IRUS guide.
Recommended or similar items
The current recommendation prototype on the Apollo Repository will be turned off on 03 February 2023. Although the pilot has been fruitful for both parties, the service provider IKVA is focusing on horizon scanning products and so the recommender service can no longer be supported. We recognise the importance of recommender services in supporting research discovery and are evaluating offerings from other service providers. If you would like to offer feedback on this decision please contact us on: support@repository.cam.ac.uk