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Poster Session A: Tuesday, August 12, 1:30 – 4:30 pm, de Brug & E‑Hall

A Spatial Tagging Mechanism for Biasing Gaze and Reflexive Selection in Memorized Visual Space

Priyanka Gupta¹, Devarajan Sridharan²; ¹Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, ²Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (IISc)

Presenter: Priyanka Gupta

Although eye movements and covert attention are known to be linked in the brain, the link between eye movements and working memory (WM) remains relatively unexplored. In particular, how gaze mechanisms contribute to selection in visual WM is an actively researched question. Here, we present evidence, for the first time, for a cognitive mechanism that biases gaze and produces reflexive (automatic) spatial selection in memorized visual space. In one dual-task paradigm, participants (n=24) prepared and executed cued saccades to one of four locations, while also maintaining orientation information from each of those locations in WM. Spatial selection in WM was quantified by comparing the mean absolute error for subsequent orientation recall across the four locations. Saccade execution – or even preparation – toward the cued location produced robust spatial selection in WM for information at this location. Indexing this selection, microsaccades were strongly biased toward the cued location during maintenance, although, by design, this location was no more relevant than any other for subsequent recall. Next, the same participants also performed another dual-task, but in this case simply reported the cued location with a manual (button-press) response. Remarkably, this paradigm also revealed robust selection in WM favoring the cued location, accompanied by a strong microsaccade bias towards it. Lastly, spatial biases in microsaccades clearly predicted the extent of WM selection. Our results show how spatially tagging a location for subsequent recall, biases gaze and produces reflexive selection in visual WM.

Topic Area: Memory, Spatial Cognition & Skill Learning

Extended Abstract: Full Text PDF