The locus of “memory displacement” is at least partially perceptual: Effects of velocity, expectation, friction, memory averaging, and weight

When observers are asked to localize the final position of a moving target, the judged position is usually displaced from the actual position. It has been suggested that mental processes derived from a number of invariant and noninvariant principles produce the mislocalization in memory. In this study, the effects of velocity, expectation, friction, memory averaging, and weight were reconsidered, and evidence was accumulated that supports the alternative view that the distortions arise to a large degree at a perceptual level. Effects of velocity and expectation were present when observers still perceived a persisting image of the target. It is suggested that the active reorienting of the perceptual organs explains the distortions. Furthermoremore, distortions of the perceived center of a visible stimulus may explain effects that have previously been attributed to memory averaging and mental analogues of weight. Thus, the locus of memory displacement is at least partially perceptual.     

Attention shifts and memory averaging

When observers are asked to localize the final position of a moving stimulus, judgements may be influenced by additional elements that are presented in the visual scene. Typically, judgements are biased toward a salient non-target element. It has been assumed that the non-target element acts as a landmark and attracts the remembered final target position. The present study investigated the effects of briefly flashed non-target elements on localization performance. Similar to landmark attraction, localization was biased toward these elements. However, an influence was only noted if the distractor was presented at the time of target disappearance or briefly thereafter. It is suggested that memory traces of distracting elements are only averaged with the final target position if they are highly activated at the time the target vanishes.     

Working memory modulates the perception of time

Recent research has indicated that reentrant feedback from the contents of working memory can enhance neural representations and the perceptual strengths of matching stimuli in the visual field. However, whether the contents of working memory can also distort conscious experiences of perception remains unclear. Our present results show that the durations of perceptual stimuli matching the nontemporal representations in working memory tend to be perceived as longer than those of mismatching stimuli. This is the first demonstration that working memory can lead to distortions of time perception. Our findings are consistent with the ideas that the perceived duration of a stimulus depends on the magnitude of the neural responses to that stimulus in visual cortex and that there is a common system for representing both temporal and nontemporal magnitudes. We conclude that top-down modulation from the nontemporal contents of working memory distorts the perceptual experience of temporal duration.     

Centripetal force draws the eyes,not memory of the target,toward the center

Many observers believe that a target will continue on a curved trajectory after exiting a spiral tube. Similarly, when observers were asked to localize the final position of a target moving on a circular orbit, displacement of the judged position in the direction of forward motion ("representational momentum") and toward the center of the orbit was observed (cf. T. L. Hubbard, 1996). The present study shows that memory displacement of targets on a circular orbit is affected by eye movements. Forward displacement was larger with ocular pursuit of the target, whereas inward displacement was larger with motionless eyes. The results challenge an account attributing forward and inward displacement to mental analogues of momentum and centripetal force, respectively.     

A matter of design: No representational momentum without predictability

When observers are asked to localize the final position of a moving target, a forward shift of the judged final position is observed. So far, the forward shift has been attributed to the influence of mental continuation of the final target position (representational momentum). However, studies investigating forward displacement have used highly predictable target motion. The direction of target motion and the final target position were often varied between subjects. Thus, observers may have expected the target to travel in a particular direction or vanish at a particular location before a given trial started. In this study, direction of motion and final position were treated as fixed or random factors. The forward shift and the reversal of the shift with time (memory averaging) were absent when both factors were randomized. Thus, the forward shift with implied motion is restricted to repeatedly observed motion sequences that allow for pre-trial motion prediction.     

Environmental invariants in the representation of motion: Implied dynamics and representational momentum,gravity, friction,and centripetal force

Memory for the final position of a moving target is often shifted or displaced from the true final position of that target. Early studies of this memory shift focused on parallels between the momentum of the target and the momentum of the representation of the target and called this displacementrepresentational momentum, but many factors other than momentum contribute to the memory shift. A consideration of the empirical literature on representational momentum and related types of displacement suggests there are at least four different types of factors influencing the direction and magnitude of such memory shifts: stimulus characteristics (e.g., target direction, target velocity), implied dynamics and environmental invariants (e.g., implied momentum, gravity, friction, centripetal force), memory averaging of target and nontarget context (e.g., biases toward previous target locations or nontarget context), and observers’ expectations (both tacit and conscious) regarding future target motion and target/context interactions. Several theories purporting to account for representational momentum and related types of displacement are also considered.     

The role of perception in the mislocalization of the final position of a moving target

The judged final position of a moving stimulus has been suggested to be shifted in the direction of motion because of mental extrapolation (representational momentum). However, a perceptual explanation is possible: The eyes overshoot the final position of the target, and because of a foveal bias, the judged position is shifted in the direction of motion. To test this hypothesis, the authors replicated previous studies, but instead of having participants indicate where the target vanished, the authors probed participants' perceptual focus by presenting probe stimuli close to the vanishing point. Identification of probes in the direction of target motion was more accurate immediately after target offset than it was with a delay. Another experiment demonstrated that judgments of the final position of a moving target are affected by whether the eyes maintain fixation or follow the target. The results are more consistent with a perceptual explanation than with a memory account.     

Conceptual and perceptual memory: retrieval orientations reflected in event-related potentials

In memory retrieval, search can be guided by mental sets towards different subsets of the available evidence. Such retrieval orientations have been suggested to leave an imprint on event-related potentials (ERPs). The present study aimed at characterizing orientations towards perceptual and conceptual evidence in a recognition task, where pictures and words were studied. In the recognition test, items were presented in either the same format as at study or in the opposite format. A between-subjects manipulation modified the task, instructing an Exclusion group to endorse only items that preserved their format from study, and an Inclusion group to endorse both formats of a studied item. It was hypothesized that exclusion instructions would instill a perceptual and inclusion instructions a conceptual orientation. As a corollary, instructions were expected to dissociate the high end from the low end of the picture-word mirror effect. This expectation was confirmed in a behavioural experiment. In an ERP experiment, retrieval orientations were examined in their effects on correct rejections of new pictures and words. Confirming earlier findings [Hornberger, M., Morcom, A. M., & Rugg, M. D. (2004). Neural correlates of retrieval orientation: effects of study-test similarity. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16(7), 1196-1210], a perceptual orientation was accompanied by more positive-going amplitudes over widespread areas. The difference was larger for pictures than for words, supporting behavioural evidence that new pictures are more easily rejected on perceptual grounds than are new words. The Exclusion group showed no ERP evidence of cross-format old-new effects, despite reaction times indicative of involuntary conceptual recognition. The results indicate that perceptual and conceptual retrieval orientations imprint distinct signatures on ERPs. They further suggest that the examined old-new effects in ERPs are mainly linked to voluntary aspects of memory, even in a task where involuntary memory exerts effects on reaction times.     

Independent priming of location and color in identification of briefly presented letters

Attention shifts are facilitated if the items to be attended remain the same across trials. Some researchers argue that this priming effect is perceptual, whereas others propose that priming is postperceptual, involving facilitated response selection. The experimental findings have not been consistent regarding the roles of variables such as task difficulty, response repetition, expectancies, and decision-making. Position priming, when repetition of a target position facilitates responses on a subsequent trial, is another source of disagreement among researchers. Experimental results have likewise been inconsistent as to whether position priming is dependent on the repetition of target features or has an independent effect on attention shifts. We attempted to isolate the perceptual components of priming by presenting brief (10–180 ms) search arrays to eight healthy observers. The task was to identify a color-singleton letter among distractors. All stimulus presentation contingencies were randomized, and responses were unspeeded, to avoid effects of observer expectation and postperceptual effects. Repeating target color and/or position strongly improved performance. The effects of color and position repetition were independent of one another and were stable across participants. The results argue for a strong perceptual component in priming, which biases selection toward recent target features and positions, showing that perceptual mechanisms are sufficient to produce priming in visual search and that such effects can be elicited with limited sensory evidence. The results are the first to demonstrate independent priming of color and position in the identification of briefly presented, postmasked stimuli.     

Independence of long-term contextual memory and short-term perceptual hypotheses: Evidence from contextual cueing of interrupted search

Observers are able to resume an interrupted search trial faster relative to responding to a new, unseen display. This finding of rapid resumption is attributed to short-term perceptual hypotheses generated on the current look and confirmed upon subsequent looks at the same display. It has been suggested that the contents of perceptual hypotheses are similar to those of other forms of memory acquired long-term through repeated exposure to the same search displays over the course of several trials, that is, the memory supporting “contextual cueing.” In three experiments, we investigated the relationship between short-term perceptual hypotheses and long-term contextual memory. The results indicated that long-term, contextual memory of repeated displays neither affected the generation nor the confirmation of short-term perceptual hypotheses for these displays. Furthermore, the analysis of eye movements suggests that long-term memory provides an initial benefit in guiding attention to the target, whereas in subsequent looks guidance is entirely based on short-term perceptual hypotheses. Overall, the results reveal a picture of both long- and short-term memory contributing to reliable performance gains in interrupted search, while exerting their effects in an independent manner.     

On the relationship between autobiographical memory and perceptual learning

Although the majority of research on human memory has concentrated on a person's ability to recall or recognize items as having been presented in a particular situation, the effects of memory are also revealed in a person's performance of a perceptual task. Prior experience with material can make that material more easily identified or comprehended in perceptually difficult situations. Unlike with standard retention tests, effects of prior experience on a perceptual task do not logically require that a person be aware that he or she is remembering. Indeed, amnesic patients purportedly show effects of practice in their subsequent performance of a perceptual or motor task even though they profess that they do not remember having engaged in that prior experience. The experiments that are reported were designed to explore the relationship between the more aware autobiographical form of memory that is measured by a recognition memory test and the less aware form of memory that is expressed in perceptual learning. Comparisons of effects on perceptual learning and recognition memory reveal two classes of variables. Variables such as the level of processing of words during study influenced recognition memory, although they had no effect on subsequent perceptual recognition. A study presentation of a word had as large an effect on its later perceptual recognition when recognition memory performance was very poor as it did when recognition memory performance was near perfect. In contrast, variables such as the number and the spacing of repetitions produced parallel effects on perceptual recognition and recognition memory. Following Mandler and others, it is suggested that there are two bases for recognition memory. If an item is readily perceived so that it seems to "jump out" from the page, a person is likely to judge that he or she has previously seen the item in the experimental situation. Variables that influence ease of perceptual recognition, then, can also have an effect on recognition memory, so parallel effects are found. The second basis for recognition memory involves elaboration of a word's study context and depends on such factors as level of processing during study--factors that are not important for perceptual recognition of isolated words. Comparisons of perceptual recognition and recognition memory are shown to be useful for determining how a variable has its effect. Effects of study on perceptual recognition appear to be totally due to memory for physical or graphemic information. Results reported are also relevant to theories of perceptual learning. A single presentation of an item is shown to have large and long-lasting effects on its later perceptual recognition. At least partially, effects of study on perceptual recognition depend on the same variables as do effects on more standard memory tests.     

In space, the past can be recast but not the present

We address the relationship between perception and spatial, working memory. Specifically, we argue that perceptual experience following the creation of a representation of target location affects it in a systematic way. We designed a motor task in which observers had to point to the initial or final position of a horizontally drifting target embedded in a vertically drifting background. The target was perceived as having an illusory motion component in a direction opposite that of the inducer dots [Duncker, 1938, Source Book of Gestalt Psychology (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co)]. For both positions, there was an identical time delay before the observer could respond. Nonetheless, estimates of the initial target position were significantly biased by the illusion in a direction opposite the perceived target motion, and both bias and variability were significantly greater than those of the target's final position. In prior studies on positional accuracy with induced displacement, a delay before a pointing response led to an unbiased position estimate obtained without delay to become biased, leading investigators to argue for a long-lasting, inaccurate cognitive system that overrules an accurate, nonetheless transient, motor one (Bridgeman et al, 1997, Perceptual Psychology 59 456-469). Since the same motor task with identical delay on either position yielded different outcomes, a hypothesis based on distinct motor and cognitive representations of visual space is untenable here. Instead, we argue that an online representation of the target's original position is updated in an ongoing fashion in order to reconcile the perceived illusion with the veridically perceived present (current target location).     

Perceptual averaging of line length: Effects of concurrent digit memory load

The present experiment investigated performance in perceptual averaging of line ensembles during maintenance of minimal and near-span memory loads of digits. Observers memorized a four-to-seven digit number (high load) or a zero (low load) prior to a brief exposure (500 ms) of an ensemble of nine horizontal lines of various lengths. A subsequent probe line was then classified by observers as greater than or less than the ensemble average length followed by serial recall of the memory load. Slope analysis of the psychometric functions relating p(”greater than”) and the probe to ensemble-mean-size-ratio showed an advantage (steeper slope and therefore smaller threshold) for averaging under high-load compared with low-load conditions. Reaction time analysis indicated that faster probe responses were more accurate than slower responses.     

Parallels between remembering and predicting an object's location

Three experiments explore effects of rotational axis and velocity on observers' predictions regarding an object's future position, and begin to explore connections between this extrapolation task and representational momentum (RM). In general, observers accept as "correct" positions that are behind the correct extrapolated location, as shown in previous work (Cooper & Munger, 1993; Finke & Shyi, 1998). These prediction distortions are in the opposite direction of typical RM memory distortions, suggesting that these tasks are unrelated. However, new effects of axis for the extrapolation task are reported which parallel axis effects previously observed for RM and mental rotation tasks. Specifically, participants make larger negative distortion errors for axes of rotation that are not coincident with the viewer's coordinate system, as if these paths of rotation are harder to extrapolate. Effects of velocity and axis are examined for RM and extrapolation tasks, and the overall pattern of distortions supports a link. In particular, participants who misremember the location of an object as further along the implied path of motion also accept as "correct" positions relatively further along the extrapolated path of motion, suggesting that these apparently opposite types of errors are indeed related.     

The perception of distances and spatial relationships in natural outdoor environments

The ability of observers to perceive distances and spatial relationships in outdoor environments was investigated in two experiments. In experiment 1, the observers adjusted triangular configurations to appear equilateral, while in experiment 2, they adjusted the depth of triangles to match their base width. The results of both experiments revealed that there are large individual differences in how observers perceive distances in outdoor settings. The observers' judgments were greatly affected by the particular task they were asked to perform. The observers who had shown no evidence of perceptual distortions in experiment 1 (with binocular vision) demonstrated large perceptual distortions in experiment 2 when the task was changed to match distances in depth to frontal distances perpendicular to the observers' line of sight. Considered as a whole, the results indicate that there is no single relationship between physical and perceived space that is consistent with observers' judgments of distances in ordinary outdoor contexts.     

The dissociation of position and extent in Müller-Lyer figures

Three experiments were designed to determine whether Müller-Lyer figures cause a misperception of the positions of their fins and, if they do, whether it is commensurate with the distortion of extent. Observers marked the visible intersection of shaft and fins either with their unseen hands or with their visible hands after the figure had been removed from view. In the former case, no systematic distortions of position were evident. In the latter case, there were small, systematic distortions of position, which were significantly smaller when the observers fixated the target vertex than when they fixated the center of the figure. These differences are discussed in terms of the probable similarities between the control of eye movements and the control of pointing responses. Of particular importance is the finding that even the largest distortions of vertex position were much smaller than the distortions of shaft extent. The results appear to provide evidence of the independence of perceived position from perceived extent in Müller-Lyer figures and to contradict all existing theories of the illusion.     

Spatial memory averaging, the landmark attraction effect, and representational gravity

The effect of a large stationary landmark on memory for the location of a stationary target was examined. Memory for a stationary target was displaced toward the landmark, and targets that were larger, further from, or above the landmark exhibited greater magnitudes of displacement. Displacement was generally larger when the landmark vanished prior to judgment than when the landmark was visible during judgment. Memory for stationary targets offset from the major vertical or horizontal cardinal axis of the landmark was also displaced toward that cardinal axis. The data support the hypotheses that spatial memory averaging of the locations of a target and landmark occurs, and that this averaging may be combined with representational gravity in determining the remembered position of a stationary target. Received: 17 May 1999 / Accepted: 8 February 2000     

Integration of stimulus dimensions in perception and memory: composition rules and psychophysical relations

A series of five experiments used the method of magnitude estimation to assess how height and width are integrated in perceptual and in memorial judgments of area. Separate groups of subjects estimated the areas of perceived or remembered rectangles produced by a symmetrical 4 X 4 factorial design of height and width. Additional independent groups of observers made area judgments, based on special mixes of perceptual and memorial information referring to the height and width components of the to-be-judged rectangles. Both perceptual and memory data obeyed the bilinear interaction prediction of the normative multiplicative model. The relation between perceived and actual area as well as the relation between remembered and actual area could both be described by a compressive power function, with the exponent being reliably smaller for remembered than for perceived area. These results seem to imply a principle of integration rule invariance across perceptual and memorial estimates of a given set of stimuli, in conjunction with characteristically different valuation operations.     

Motion structure in five-dot patterns as a determinant of perceptual grouping

The effect of basic motion structures on perceptual grouping was studied with five-dot motion patterns. Four basic motion structures were identified in terms of proximal common and relative motion vectors. In a forced-choice situation, the observers had to decide to which of two pairs of dots a fifth critical dot seemed to belong. Thus, one of two possible three-dot units was chosen by the observers. The two possible three-dot units defined different motion structures, and the chosen motion structure was considered to have stronger grouping power than the alternative structure had. It was found that parallel common motions (perceived translation in the plane) had the strongest grouping power; these were followed by circular common motions (perceived rotation in the plane), concurrent relative motions (perceived translation in depth), and, finally, parallel relative motions (perceived rotation in depth). The results also suggested effects of proximity and orientation of axis of rotation. It is further argued that the relative grouping power of the motion structures could not solely be interpreted in terms of changes of directions and distances between the dots. Instead it is suggested that vector analysis is a fundamental perceptual activity and that basic motion structures determine grouping power.