Opposite effects of perceptual and working memory load on perceptual filling-in of an artificial scotoma

Abstract

A target presented on a background of dynamic noise disappears from awareness after a few seconds of maintained peripheral viewing. Whereas the effects of bottom-up factors in such filling-in are well documented, the roles of different top-down functions remain relatively unexplored. Here, we investigated the roles of attention and working memory (WM) by manipulating load in concurrent tasks while participants reported filling-in of a peripheral target. In Experiment 1, increasing perceptual load reduced the probability of filling-in and increased the latency of its occurrence. In Experiment 2, increasing WM load shortened the time before filling-in occurred––the opposite effect to increasing perceptual load. These results demonstrate that different top-down functions may have dissociable effects on filling-in.

Keywords:

• Filling-in
• Perceptual completion
• Artificial scotoma
• Attention
• Working memory
• Load theory
• Perceptual load
• Working memory load

Acknowledgments

R. S. Weil and V. Wykes contributed equally to this paper. This work was supported by the Medical Research Council (R.W.), the International Brain Research Foundation (D.C.), and the Wellcome Trust (G.R.). We thank Bahador Bahrami and Elaine Anderson for helpful discussions on the manuscript. Commercial relationships: None.