Abstract
Visual working memory (VWM) was explored separately for features and for their binding. Features were better recognized when the probes retained the same binding as in the original display, but changing the locations had little effect overall. However, there were strong interactions of location with binding and with matching or new features, suggesting that, when objects are attended, features and locations are spontaneously integrated in VWM. Despite this, when the locations are changed, features can also be accessed with little decrement, perhaps from separate feature maps. Bindings, on the other hand, are more vulnerable to location changes, suggesting that locations play a central role in the early maintenance and retrieval of bound objects as well as in their initial encoding, at least when verbal coding is prevented. The results qualify past claims about the separation of locations and objects in VWM.
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This research was supported by Grant P50 MH62196 from the NIH Conte Center, Grant 1000274 from the Israeli Binational Science Foundation, and Grant 2004 2RO1 MH 058383-04A1 visual coding and the deployment of attention from the NIH.
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Treisman, A., Zhang, W. Location and binding in visual working memory. Memory & Cognition 34, 1704–1719 (2006). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195932
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195932