Wed, 29 Mar 2023
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16:00

AFC Lab, University of Lausanne
Visual working memory (VWM) is limited in capacity, but memorizing meaningful
objects may refine this limitation. However, meaningless and meaningful stimuli usually
differ perceptually and an object’s association with meaning is typically already established
before the actual experiment. We applied a strict control over these potential confounds
by asking observers (N=45) to actively learn associations of (initially) meaningless objects.
To this end, a change detection task presented Chinese characters, which were meaningless to
our observers. Subsequently, half of the characters were consistently paired with pictures of
animals. Then, the initial change detection task was repeated. The results revealed enhanced
VWM performance after learning, in particular for meaning-associated characters (though not
quite reaching the accuracy level attained by N=20 native Chinese observers). These results
thus provide direct experimental evidence that the short-term retention of objects benefits
from active learning of an object’s association with meaning in long-term memory.