Eccentricity biases of object categories are evident in visual working memory

Abstract

In high-order object areas, face-selective areas prefer centrally presented stimuli, whereas building-selective areas prefer peripherally presented stimuli (Levy et al., 2001). We investigated whether this eccentricity bias was also evident in visual working memory. In Experiment 1, we found that working memory performance for faces decreased towards the periphery while the performance for buildings remained unchanged across different eccentricities. To rule out the possibility that lower level features influence these results, we manipulated the spatial frequency of faces and buildings (Experiment 2) and the spatial layout information of the buildings (Experiment 3). In both of the experiments, we replicated the results of Experiment 1, even when these lower level features of stimuli were controlled. Consistent with previous findings, the current results suggest that each object category is processed in a different manner depending on the eccentricity. This eccentricity bias is likely the result of how the high-order object areas represent different object categories.

Keywords:

• Eccentricity
• Eccentricity bias
• High-order object area
• Object category
• Visual working memory

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Converging Research Center Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2010-0029270). Portions of the research in this paper use the FERET database of facial images collected under the FERET program sponsored by the DOD Counterdrug Technology Development Program Office.

Notes

¹We also analysed our data using d′ (Green & Swets, 1966) and found essentially the same patterns of the results described here.