How does the eye-movement system mediate the formation, retention and recall of visuospatial working memories?
Lead Research Organisation:
Durham University
Department Name: Psychology
Abstract
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People |
ORCID iD |
| Daniel Smith (Principal Investigator) | |
| David Pearson (Co-Investigator) |
Publications
McAteer SM
(2023)
Oculomotor rehearsal in visuospatial working memory.
in Attention, perception & psychophysics
McAteer SM
(2023)
Dynamic resource allocation in spatial working memory during full and partial report tasks.
in Journal of vision
Pearson DG
(2014)
Oculomotor preparation as a rehearsal mechanism in spatial working memory.
in Cognition
Daniel Smith (Author)
(2013)
Attention within and beyond the Effective Oculomotor Range
in Journal of Eye Movement Research
Ball K
(2013)
Oculomotor involvement in spatial working memory is task-specific.
in Cognition
David Pearson (Speaker)
(2012)
Do eyes have it? : the relationship between the eye movement system and spatial memory
Keira Ball (Speaker)
(2012)
Preventing oculomotor preparation disrupts spatial but not visual or verbal working memory
in Perception
| Description | Many everyday tasks, such as remembering where you parked, require the capacity to store and manipulate information about the visual and spatial properties of the world. The ability to represent, remember, and manipulate spatial information is known as visuospatial working memory (VSWM). Despite substantial interest in VSWM there is no clear consensus among scientists about how we create and maintain these memories. More specifically, there is little agreement about: a) how spatial working memories are created b) how we keep these memories active c) how we recall spatial information that has been stored in long-term memory. One influential idea is that VSWM depends on activity in the eye-movement system. However, this has proved difficult to test because experimental paradigms that disrupt eye movements also interfere with other cognitive systems, such as spatial attention. In this project we studied VSWM using a novel paradigm that disrupts eye-movements but not spatial attention. We found that that preventing eye-movements made it harder to remember a sequence of locations, but had no effect on remembering patterns, sequences of numbers, the relative size of objects or the orientation of arrows. In subsequent experiments we showed that the problem occurred because people failed to create and store the memories. We concluded that the ability to plan eye-movements is essential for the formation and retention of spatial memories, but less important for recalling spatial memories |
| Exploitation Route | Our results show that eye-movements are essential for optimal spatial memory. Recalling information from a map is a good example of everyday use of spatial memory. Until recently, we explored static maps with eye-movements. in the last decade, this has changed because many people now use applications such as googlemaps on mobile devices. When exploring these maps the map is moved by scrolling across the display, while the eyes remain relatively still. Given the importance of eye-movements for memory, we believe that viewing maps on mobile devices may make it harder to encode and/or recall accurate spatial information from the map. We plan to pursue this idea with follow-up grant applications and explore collaborations with groups such as the Royal Geographical Society and the Institute for Navigation. We have already secured a small grant to fund a Durham University undergraduate to collect some pilot data |
| Sectors | Other |
| URL | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001002771400095X |
| Description | Research Project Grant |
| Amount | £148,494 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | RPGF1906\153 |
| Organisation | The Dunhill Medical Trust |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 05/2020 |
| End | 05/2023 |
| Description | Undergradaute Research Bursary |
| Amount | £1,800 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Experimental Psychology Society (EPS) |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2014 |
| End | 09/2014 |
| Description | Progressive Supranuclear Palsy Project |
| Organisation | South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust |
| Department | Department of Cellular Pathology |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Hospitals |
| PI Contribution | I applied some of the ideas developed during this award to begin developing a new test for a disease called Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. This collaboration was also strongly influenced by my previous ESRC grant |
| Collaborator Contribution | Dr Neil Archibald has helped recruit patients with PSP and acts as the local NHS investigator |
| Impact | We have published a paper and a book chapter outlining some preliminary results |
| Start Year | 2017 |