Essential considerations for exploring visual working memory storage in the human brain

ABSTRACT

Visual working memory (VWM) relies on a distributed cortical network. Yet, the extent to which individual cortical areas, like early visual cortex and intraparietal sulcus, are essential to VWM storage remains debated. Here, we reanalyze key datasets from two independent labs to address three topics at the forefront of current-day VWM research: Resiliency of mnemonic representations against visual distraction, the role of attentional priority in memory, and brain–behavior relationships. By utilizing different analysis approaches, each designed to test different aspects of mnemonic coding, our results provide a comprehensive perspective on the role of early visual and intraparietal areas. We emphasize the importance of analysis choices, and how a thorough understanding of the principles they test is crucial for unraveling the distributed mechanisms of VWM. Consequently, we caution against the idea of a singular essential storage area, which could limit our comprehension of the VWM system.

KEYWORDS:

• Visual working memory
• fMRI
• early visual cortex
• posterior parietal cortex
• sensory recruitment
• brain–behavior relationship

Acknowledgements

We thank John Serences and John-Dylan Haynes for the data collected in their respective labs, without which this paper would not have been possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

PI and RLR performed the data reanalysis, PI, RLR, TBC, and SG wrote the manuscript.

Data availability

Behavioral and fMRI data from Rademaker et al. (2019) are available at https://osf.io/dkx6y. Behavioral and fMRI data from Christophel et al. (2018) are available from TBC upon request.

Code availability

All reanalysis code from this paper is available at https://osf.io/dcrf6/.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (no grant number applicable) (PI), a DFG Emmy Noether Research Group Grant CH 1674/2-1 (TBC), a Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research Vl.Veni.191G.085 grant (SG), and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No 743941 (RLR); Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.