TY - JOUR
T1 - Visual working memory for simple and complex visual stimuli
AU - Eng, Hing Yee
AU - Chen, Diyu
AU - Jiang, Yuhong
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2017 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2005/12
Y1 - 2005/12
N2 - Does the magical number four characterize our visual working memory (VWM) capacity for all kinds of objects, or is the capacity of VWM inversely related to the perceptual complexity of those objects? To find out how perceptual complexity affects VWM, we used a change detection task to measure VWM capacity for six types of stimuli of different complexity: colors, letters, polygons, squiggles, cubes, and faces. We found that the estimated capacity decreased for more complex stimuli, suggesting that perceptual complexity was an important factor in determining VWM capacity. However, the considerable correlation between perceptual complexity and VWM capacity declined significantly if subjects were allowed to view the sample memory display longer. We conclude that when encoding limitations are minimized, perceptual complexity affects, but does not determine, VWM capacity.
AB - Does the magical number four characterize our visual working memory (VWM) capacity for all kinds of objects, or is the capacity of VWM inversely related to the perceptual complexity of those objects? To find out how perceptual complexity affects VWM, we used a change detection task to measure VWM capacity for six types of stimuli of different complexity: colors, letters, polygons, squiggles, cubes, and faces. We found that the estimated capacity decreased for more complex stimuli, suggesting that perceptual complexity was an important factor in determining VWM capacity. However, the considerable correlation between perceptual complexity and VWM capacity declined significantly if subjects were allowed to view the sample memory display longer. We conclude that when encoding limitations are minimized, perceptual complexity affects, but does not determine, VWM capacity.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33646734139&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=33646734139&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3758/BF03206454
DO - 10.3758/BF03206454
M3 - Review article
C2 - 16615339
AN - SCOPUS:33646734139
SN - 1069-9384
VL - 12
SP - 1127
EP - 1133
JO - Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
JF - Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
IS - 6
ER -