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Sensory memory is allocated exclusively to the current event-segment

Yes / The Atkinson-Shiffrin modal model forms the foundation of our understanding of human memory. It consists of three stores (Sensory Memory (SM), also called iconic memory, Short-Term Memory (STM), and Long-Term Memory (LTM)), each tuned to a different time-scale. Since its inception, the STM and LTM components of the modal model have undergone significant modifications, while SM has remained largely unchanged, representing a large capacity system funneling information into STM. In the laboratory, visual memory is usually tested by presenting a brief static stimulus and, after a delay, asking observers to report some aspect of the stimulus. However, under ecological viewing conditions, our visual system receives a continuous stream of inputs, which is segmented into distinct spatio-temporal segments, called events. Events are further segmented into event-segments. Here we show that SM is not an unspecific general funnel to STM but is allocated exclusively to the current event-segment. We used a Multiple-Object Tracking (MOT) paradigm in which observers were presented with disks moving in different directions, along bi-linear trajectories, i.e., linear trajectories, with a single deviation in direction at the mid-point of each trajectory. The synchronized deviation of all of the trajectories produced an event stimulus consisting of two event-segments. Observers reported the pre-deviation or the post-deviation directions of the trajectories. By analyzing observers' responses in partial- and full-report conditions, we investigated the involvement of SM for the two event-segments. The hallmarks of SM hold only for the current event segment. As the large capacity SM stores only items involved in the current event-segment, the need for event-tagging in SM is eliminated, speeding up processing in active vision. By characterizing how memory systems are interfaced with ecological events, this new model extends the Atkinson-Shiffrin model by specifying how events are stored in the first stage of multi-store memory systems.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/16722
Date19 December 2018
CreatorsTripathy, Srimant P., Ögmen, H.
Source SetsBradford Scholars
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle, Published version
Rights(c) 2018 The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the Creative Commons CC-BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), CC-BY

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