Abstract
In recent years, there has been growing research regarding the online nature of visual working memory (VWM). These online aspects are arguably the defining attributes of working memory, but they are challenging to study using traditional behavioral paradigms. One powerful tool to examine online processing in VWM is the contralateral delay activity (CDA), the ERP marker of VWM. We review studies that convincingly demonstrated that the CDA is a unique marker of VWM activity. This specificity joins the excellent temporal resolution of the CDA and the fact that it can be measured not only during memory retention but also when items are visible on the screen, to make the CDA an ideal tool for studying the online processing of items still within view. We present several lines of research that successfully utilized the CDA to uncover the role of VWM in online processing. Finally, we present basic guidelines for using the CDA to study online processes, along with examples from our recent research. We hope that this will enable more researchers to capitalize on the CDA’s advantages, allowing new discoveries to be made regarding VWM as an online workspace.
Keywords
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Baddeley AD, Hitch G (1974) Working memory. Psychol Learn Motiv 8:47–89
Cowan N (2001) The magical number 4 in short-term memory: a reconsideration of mental storage capacity. Behav Brain Sci 24(1):87–114
Parra MA et al (2011) Specific deficit of colour-colour short-term memory binding in sporadic and familial Alzheimer’s disease. Neuropsychologia 49(7):1943–1952
Jost K et al (2011) Are old adults just like low working memory young adults? Filtering efficiency and age differences in visual working memory. Cereb Cortex 21(5):1147–1154
Martinussen R et al (2005) A meta-analysis of working memory impairments in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. J Am Acad Child Psychiatry 44(4):377–384
Johnson MK et al (2013) The relationship between working memory capacity and broad measures of cognitive ability in healthy adults and people with schizophrenia. Neuropsychology 27(2):220–229
Cowan N et al (2005) On the capacity of attention: its estimation and its role in working memory and cognitive aptitudes. Cogn Psychol 51(1):42–100
Fukuda K et al (2010) Quantity, not quality: the relationship between fluid intelligence and working memory capacity. Psychon B Rev 17(5):673–679
Vogel EK, McCollough AW, Machizawa MG (2005) Neural measures reveal individual differences in controlling access to working memory. Nature 438(7067):500–503
Luck SJ, Vogel EK (2013) Visual working memory capacity: from psychophysics and neurobiology to individual differences. Trends Cogn Sci 17(8):391–400
Ma WJ, Husain M, Bays PM (2014) Changing concepts of working memory. Nat Neurosci 17(3):347–356
Brady TF, Konkle T, Alvarez GA (2011) A review of visual memory capacity: beyond individual items and toward structured representations. J Vis 11(5):4
Luck SJ, Vogel EK (1997) The capacity of visual working memory for features and conjunctions. Nature 390(6657):279–281
Vogel EK, Woodman GF, Luck SJ (2001) Storage of features, conjunctions and objects in visual working memory. J Exp Psychol Human 27(1):92–114
Awh E, Barton B, Vogel EK (2007) Visual working memory represents a fixed number of items regardless of complexity. Psychol Sci 18(7):622–628
Wilken P, Ma WJ (2004) A detection theory account of change detection. J Vis 4(12):1–11
Zhang W, Luck SJ (2008) Discrete fixed-resolution representations in visual working memory. Nature 453(7192):233–235
Fougnie D, Suchow JW, Alvarez GA (2012) Variability in the quality of visual working memory. Nat Commun 3:1229
Tsubomi H et al (2013) Neural limits to representing objects still within view. J Neurosci 33(19):8257–8263
McConkie GW, Currie CB (1996) Visual stability across saccades while viewing complex pictures. J Exp Psychol Human 22(3):563
Blaser E, Pylyshyn ZW, Holcombe AO (2000) Tracking an object through feature space. Nature 408(6809):196–199
Balaban H, Drew T, Luria R (2018) Visual working memory can selectively reset a subset of its representations. Psychon B Rev 25(5):1877–1883
Vogel EK, Machizawa MG (2004) Neural activity predicts individual differences in visual working memory capacity. Nature 428(6984):748–751
McCollough AW, Machizawa MG, Vogel EK (2007) Electrophysiological measures of maintaining representations in visual working memory. Cortex 43(1):77–94
Luria R et al (2016) The contralateral delay activity as a neural measure of visual working memory. Neurosci Biobehav R 62:100–108
Klaver P et al (1999) An event-related brain potential correlate of visual short-term memory. Neuroreport 10(10):2001–2005
Ikkai A, McCollough AW, Vogel EK (2010) Contralateral delay activity provides a neural measure of the number of representations in visual working memory. J Neurophysiol 103(4):1963–1968
Balaban H, Luria R (2016) Integration of distinct objects in visual working memory depends on strong objecthood cues even for different-dimension conjunctions. Cereb Cortex 26(5):2093–2104
Balaban H, Luria R (2016) Object representations in visual working memory change according to the task context. Cortex 81:1–13
Luria R, Vogel EK (2011) Shape and color conjunction stimuli are represented as bound objects in visual working memory. Neuropsychologia 49(6):1632–1639
Luria R, Vogel EK (2014) Come together, right now: dynamic overwriting of an object’s history through common fate. J Cogn Neurosci 26(8):1819–1828
Feldmann-Wüstefeld T, Vogel EK, Awh E (2018) Contralateral delay activity indexes working memory storage, not the current focus of spatial attention. J Cogn Neurosci 30(8):1–11
Kang MS, Woodman GF (2014) The neurophysiological index of visual working memory maintenance is not due to load dependent eye movements. Neuropsychologia 56:63–72
Luria R et al (2010) Visual short-term memory capacity for simple and complex objects. J Cogn Neurosci 22(3):496–512
Ye C et al (2014) Visual working memory capacity for color is independent of representation resolution. Plos One 9(3):e91681
Woodman GF, Vogel EK, Luck SJ (2001) Visual search remains efficient when visual working memory is full. Psychol Sci 12(3):219–224
Emrich SM et al (2009) Visual search elicits the electrophysiological marker of visual working memory. Plos One 4(11):e8042
Luria R, Vogel EK (2011) Visual search demands dictate reliance on working memory storage. J Neurosci 31(16):6199–6207
Töllner T et al (2013) Selective manipulation of target identification demands in visual search: the role of stimulus contrast in CDA activations. J Vis 13(3):23–23
Hilimire MR et al (2011) Dynamics of target and distractor processing in visual search: evidence from event-related brain potentials. Neurosci Lett 495(3):196–200
Kundu B et al (2013) Strengthened effective connectivity underlies transfer of working memory training to tests of short-term memory and attention. J Neurosci 33(20):8705–8715
Drew T, Vogel EK (2008) Neural measures of individual differences in selecting and tracking multiple moving objects. J Neurosci 28(16):4183–4191
Drew T et al (2011) Delineating the neural signatures of tracking spatial position and working memory during attentive tracking. J Neurosci 31(2):659–668
Drew T et al (2012) Neural measures of dynamic changes in attentive tracking load. J Cogn Neurosci 24(2):440–450
Drew T et al (2013) Swapping or dropping? Electrophysiological measures of difficulty during multiple object tracking. Cognition 126(2):213–223
Balaban H, Luria R (2015) The number of objects determines visual working memory capacity allocation for complex items. Neuroimage 119:54–62
Balaban H, Luria R (2017) Neural and behavioral evidence for an online resetting process in visual working memory. J Neurosci 37(5):1225–1239
Balaban H, Drew T, Luria R (2018) Delineating resetting and updating in visual working memory based on the object-to-representation correspondence. Neuropsychologia 113:85–94
Luck SJ (2005) An introduction to the event-related potential technique. MIT Press, Cambridge
Luck SJ (2014) An introduction to the event-related potential technique. MIT Press, Cambridge
Delorme A, Makeig S (2004) EEGLAB: an open source toolbox for analysis of single-trial EEG dynamics including independent component analysis. J Neurosci Methods 134(1):9–21
Lopez-Calderon J, Luck SJ (2014) ERPLAB: an open-source toolbox for the analysis of event-related potentials. Front Hum Neurosci 8:213
Hillyard SA, Galambos R (1970) Eye movement artifact in the CNV. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol 28(2):173–182
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by an Israel Science Foundation (grant number 862/17) to R.L. and an Azrieli Fellowship to H.B.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Balaban, H., Luria, R. (2019). Using the Contralateral Delay Activity to Study Online Processing of Items Still Within View. In: Pollmann, S. (eds) Spatial Learning and Attention Guidance. Neuromethods, vol 151. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/7657_2019_22
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/7657_2019_22
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-9947-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-9948-4
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols