Abstract
Visual working memory enables us to hold and manipulate visual information in mind. It is a major challenge for cognitive neuroscience to reveal how this important cognitive process is accomplished by the brain. Electrophysiological investigations in humans show that engagement of visual working memory elicits a slow negative deflection of the event related potential (ERP) over the posterior cortex. In order to reveal more details on the relationship between visual working memory and the slow ERP negativity, we adopted a well-established mental rotation paradigm. It has been demonstrated in previous studies that the slow negative wave recorded in this task (termed mental rotation related negativity, RRN) increases with increasing angular deviation of stimuli, i.e. angle of mental rotation. Our investigations show that RRN reflects individual task performance, but only if the ERP is calculated by averaging signals time locked to the response, not stimulus onset. Furthermore, we found that RRN is related to mental manipulation of a visual image rather than its retention in short-term memory. These findings are a step forward in elucidating brain mechanisms of visual working memory. Supported by VEGA grants 2/0080/13 and 2/0093/14.
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