Abstract
Observers determined whether two sequentially presented arrays of six lines were the same or different. Differences, when present, involved either a swap in the color of two lines or a swap in the orientation of two lines. Thus, accurate change detection required the binding of color and orientation information for each line within visual working memory. Holding viewing distance constant, the proximity of the arrays to the hands was manipulated. Placing the hands near the to-be-remembered array decreased participants’ ability to remember color information, but increased their ability to remember orientation information. This pair of results indicates that hand proximity differentially affects the processing of various types of visual information, a conclusion broadly consistent with functional and anatomical differences in the magnocellular and parvocellular pathways. It further indicates that hand proximity affects the likelihood that various object features will be encoded into integrated object files.
Highlights
Observers determined whether two sequentially presented arrays of six lines were the same or different
Performance was analyzed in terms of a 2 × 2 repeated measures analysis of variance
Our results indicate that color memory is better when the hands are far from to-be-remembered objects while orientation memory is better when the hands are placed near those objects
Summary
Observers determined whether two sequentially presented arrays of six lines were the same or different. Placing the hands near the to-be-remembered array decreased participants’ ability to remember color information, but increased their ability to remember orientation information This pair of results indicates that hand proximity differentially affects the processing of various types of visual information, a conclusion broadly consistent with functional and anatomical differences in the magnocellular and parvocellular pathways. When the hands are placed near to-be-remembered objects, working memory capacity increases (Tseng and Bridgeman, 2011) and long-term memory for visual details improves (Davoli et al, 2012b). The parvocellular pathway processes information such as color and fine spatial details while the magnocellular pathway analyzes low-spatial frequency motion and other dynamic aspects of the world This anatomical distinction is related to a differentiation between the visual perception of form and the visual coordination of action. Hand position and working memory with this view, Gozli and colleagues showed that when objects appeared near the hands, detection of temporal discontinuities in object presence (a magnocellular process) improved while spatial discontinuities in object contour (a parvocellular process) diminished
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