Re-evaluating the relationships among filtering activity, unnecessary storage, and visual working memory capacity

Emrich, Stephen M.; Busseri, Michael A. · 2015 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.3758/s13415-015-0341-z

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Summary

This paper re-evaluates the theoretical mechanisms underlying individual differences in visual working memory (VWM) capacity, specifically challenging the prevailing view that "unnecessary storage" of task-irrelevant information is the primary limiting factor. Previous research suggested that VWM capacity is determined by the ability to filter out distractors, thereby preventing them from occupying limited storage slots. This "bouncer" analogy posits that filtering activity prevents unnecessary storage, which in turn preserves capacity for relevant items. The authors argue that this causal chain has been inferred from correlations rather than tested directly, and they seek to determine whether filtering activity or unnecessary storage is the unique predictor of VWM performance. To address this, the authors re-analyzed data from two prominent studies: McNab and Klingberg (2008), which used fMRI to measure filtering set activity in the frontal cortex and basal ganglia, and Liesefeld et al. (2014), which used EEG to measure distractor detection, prefrontal bias signals (filtering initiation), and unnecessary storage. The authors employed path analysis to test the implied models from these studies. In the McNab and Klingberg re-analysis, they tested whether filtering set activity predicted VWM capacity indirectly through unnecessary storage. In the Liesefeld et al. re-analysis, they tested a three-stage causal chain involving distractor detection, filtering initiation, and unnecessary storage as predictors of capacity. The results from both re-analyses contradicted the original interpretations. In the McNab and Klingberg data, a model including a direct path from filtering set activity to VWM capacity fit the data significantly better than the original indirect model. Filtering set activity uniquely predicted VWM capacity, whereas unnecessary storage did not. Similarly, in the Liesefeld et al. data, the prefrontal bias signal (filtering initiation) was the only unique predictor of VWM capacity among the three filtering-related processes. Distractor detection and unnecessary storage were not significant predictors when filtering initiation was accounted for. The revised models explained two to three times more variance in VWM capacity than the original models. These findings suggest that unnecessary storage is not the primary determinant of VWM capacity. Instead, neural activity associated with attentional control and filtering initiation plays a more central role. The authors propose that filtering-related activity may reflect a broader top-down attentional mechanism that enhances the processing of relevant information, rather than merely preventing the storage of irrelevant items. This implies that individual differences in VWM capacity are driven by the efficiency of attentional selection mechanisms, which may improve the fidelity or precision of stored representations, rather than simply by the avoidance of distractor encoding.

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Topics

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• working memory
• cognitive capacity variation