Serial order working memory and spatial attention: an EEG study
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1
Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium
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2
Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Spain
The first empirical evidence for the involvement of spatial attention in serial order working memory (WM) was provided by van Dijck et al, 2013. They reported that while maintaining a sequence of four digits in WM, selection of the relevant information from the sequence is driven by an attentional search across an internal mental space.
In this study, based on the available EEG data from van Dijck et al. 2013’s experiment, we addressed the neural indication of the induced shifts of attention in response to the retrieval of the items stored in serial order WM. Specifically, the induced rightward attentional shift in response to selection of the latest item compared to the earliest item in the sequence was inspected in brain signals. Lateralized ERP components, namely, EDAN and ADAN (Figures 1 and 2) and alpha activity (responsible for inhibition of the irrelevant information) were found to accommodate trademarks of the related visuospatial shifts of attention. Moreover, lateralized alpha activity as the neural measure of the covert shift of attention was found to be correlated with the behavioral measure of the attentional shift in mental space (Figure 3).
In sum, we provide neural evidence for the involvement of visuospatial attention in serial order WM in the verbal domain. Our findings substantiate the crossover processes between visuospatial and verbal domains in WM. This challenges the classical models of WM where separate components are allocated for visuospatial and verbal domains.
References
van Dijck, J. P., Abrahamse, E. L., Majerus, S., & Fias, W. (2013). Spatial attention interacts with serial-order retrieval from verbal working memory. Psychological Science, 24(9), 1854-1859.
Keywords:
Serial order working memory,
visuospatial attention,
EEG,
ERPs (EDAN, ADAN),
Alpha oscillations
Conference:
13th National Congress of the Belgian Society for Neuroscience , Brussels, Belgium, 24 May - 24 May, 2019.
Presentation Type:
Poster presentation
Topic:
Behavioral/Systems Neuroscience
Citation:
Rasoulzadeh
V,
Sahan
MI,
Abrahamse
E,
Van Dijck
J and
Fias
W
(2019). Serial order working memory and spatial attention: an EEG study.
Front. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
13th National Congress of the Belgian Society for Neuroscience .
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2019.96.00048
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Received:
24 Apr 2019;
Published Online:
27 Sep 2019.
*
Correspondence:
Mx. Vesal Rasoulzadeh, Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, East Flanders, 9000, Belgium, vesal.rasoulzadeh@ugent.be
Dr. Jean-Philippe Van Dijck, Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, East Flanders, 9000, Belgium, jean-philippe.vandijck@thomasmore.be