Abstract
Visual short-term memory (VSTM) is an important cognitive function that acts as a temporary storage for visual information. Previous studies have shown that VSTM capacity can be modulated by the location of one’s hands, where hand proximity enhances neural processing and memory of nearby visual stimuli. The present study used traditional event-related potentials (ERP) along with multiscale entropy (MSE) analysis to shed light on the neural mechanism(s) behind such near-hand effect. Participants’ electroencephalogram (EEG) data were recorded as they performed a VSTM task with their hands either proximal or distal to the display. ERP analysis showed altered memory processing in the 400–700 ms time window during memory retrieval period. Importantly, MSE analysis also showed significant EEG difference between hand proximal and distal conditions between scales 10 to 20, and such difference is clustered around the right parietal cortex – a region that is involved in VSTM processing and bimodal hand-eye integration. The implications of higher MSE time scale in the parietal cortex are discussed in the context of signal complexity and its possible relation to cognitive processing. To our knowledge, this study provides the first investigation using MSE to characterize the temporal characteristics and signal complexity behind the effect of hand proximity.
Highlights
Visual short-term memory (VSTM) is an important cognitive function that acts as a temporary storage for visual information
The present study aimed to test whether hand proximity would alter neural processing at varying levels of complexity
We observed that at scale 10 and beyond, EEG signal complexity becomes significantly different between the hand proximal and distal conditions
Summary
Visual short-term memory (VSTM) is an important cognitive function that acts as a temporary storage for visual information Such storage allows visual and spatial information to stay intact and accessible in the brain the actual physical stimulus is no longer in view (e.g., occlusion, blink, saccade, etc.). VSTM integrity is often assessed with a change detection paradigm, which is similar to the popular spot-the-difference game, but in a more controlled laboratory setting. Participants see one image for a few 10 milliseconds, followed by a brief blank display, and the image would reappear but sometimes may contain a slight change from its first appearance.
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