Abstract
Two hypotheses have been proposed to explain the formation manner for visual working memory (VWM) representations during the consolidation process: an all-or-none process hypothesis and a coarse-to-fine process hypothesis. However, neither the all-or-none process hypothesis nor the coarse-to-fine process hypothesis can stipulate clearly how VWM representations are formed during the consolidation process. In the current study, we propose a two-stage process hypothesis to reconcile these hypotheses. The two-stage process hypothesis suggests that the consolidation of coarse information is an all-or-none process in the early consolidation stage, while the consolidation of detailed information is a coarse-to-fine process in the late consolidation stage. By systematically manipulating the encoding time of memory stimuli, we asked participants to memorize one (Experiment 1) or two (Experiment 2) orientations in different encoding time intervals. We found that the memory rate increased linearly as the encoding time increased. More importantly, VWM precision remained constant when the encoding time was short, while the precision increased linearly as the encoding time increased when the encoding time was sufficient. These results supported the two-stage process hypothesis, which reconciles previous conflicting findings in the literature.
Highlights
Two hypotheses have been proposed to explain the formation manner for visual working memory (VWM) representations during the consolidation process: an all-or-none process hypothesis and a coarse-to-fine process hypothesis
The results of Experiment 1 show that the manipulation of encoding time did not affect memory precision (i.e., SD−1) when the encoding time was between T (70%) and T (90%), but that memory rate (i.e., 1 − Pg) increased linearly with the encoding time
The null result for memory rate between the 2 × T(90%) condition and 4 × T(90%) condition could be due to the floor effect of guess rate at long encoding time intervals
Summary
Two hypotheses have been proposed to explain the formation manner for visual working memory (VWM) representations during the consolidation process: an all-or-none process hypothesis and a coarse-to-fine process hypothesis. VWM precision remained constant when the encoding time was short, while the precision increased linearly as the encoding time increased when the encoding time was sufficient These results supported the twostage process hypothesis, which reconciles previous conflicting findings in the literature. The all-or-none hypothesis suggests that, when the perception representation is consolidated to VWM representation, the full representation will be created directly but, if the encoding time is not sufficient, the consolidation process will fail[11]. Gao et al.[12] manipulated the encoding time interval and found that low-precision information preceded high-precision information when entered into VWM, supporting the coarse-to-fine hypothesis. The interval length of the encoding/consolidation time may affect the formation manner of representation
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