Visual Working Memory As Decision Making: Compensation for Memory Uncertainty in Reach Planning Rachel A

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Visual Working Memory As Decision Making: Compensation for Memory Uncertainty in Reach Planning Rachel A Visual Working Memory as Decision Making: Compensation for Memory Uncertainty in Reach Planning Rachel A. Lerch Chris R. Sims ([email protected]) ([email protected]) Applied Cognitive & Brain Sciences, Department of Psychology Drexel University Abstract Brouwer and Knill (2007, 2009) demonstrated that VWM is Limitations in visual working memory (VWM) have been ex- similarly critical for online movement control, even when tensively studied in psychophysical tasks, but not well under- reaching for targets that are currently visible. This paper stood in terms of how memory limits translate to performance builds on the close connection between VWM and motor con- in more natural domains. For example, in reaching to grasp an object based on a spatial memory representation, overshooting trol, and examines how imposed monetary costs on VWM er- the intended target may be more costly than undershooting, rors affect an individual’s movement planning. We therefore such as when reaching for a cup of hot coffee. The current examine motor planning and visual working memory from body of literature lacks a detailed account of how the phys- ical consequences and costs of memory error influence what the perspective of decision theory (Kording,¨ 2007). we encode in visual memory, and how we act on the basis of One intuitive example that illustrates how errors in VWM remembered information. Here, we study whether externally- can translate into relevant behavioral costs is the so-called imposed monetary costs influence behavior in a task that in- volves motor planning based on information recalled from ‘wine-glass problem’. You might imagine yourself on a din- VWM. Our results indicate that subjects accounted for the un- ner date, and maintaining eye contact with your date while certainty in their visual memory, showing a significant differ- simultaneously reaching to pick up your glass of wine. In this ence in their motor planning when monetary costs were im- posed for memory errors. However, our findings indicate that example there are two sources of information available to the subjects’ memory representations per se were not biased by brain regarding the location of your wine glass: information the imposed costs, but rather subjects adopted a near-optimal from the visual periphery present at the time of planning, and post-mnemonic decision strategy. remembered information from previous fixations on the glass. Keywords: Visual working memory; decision making; motor planning However, both sources of information are of limited fidelity (Brouwer & Knill, 2007, 2009), and in this situation memory Introduction error may lead to significant social costs. If you misremember Visual working memory (VWM) can be defined as a system the location of the wine glass as being further from you than that actively maintains visual information to serve the needs it really is, you might overshoot and knock over the glass. In of ongoing tasks (Luck & Vogel, 2013). The limitations of this case, it is less costly to misremember the target as being this system have been the subject of numerous psychophysi- closer to you than it really is, since this would result in un- cal studies, with particular interest in understanding possible dershooting and having to make a slight additional reaching limits in the number of items that can be sustained in memory, movement to adjust for your mistake (example adapted from as well as the quality or precision of recalled representations, Trommershauser,¨ Maloney, & Landy, 2008). particularly as the set size increases (Luck & Vogel, 2013; From this perspective, the study of VWM can be ap- Ma, Husain, & Bays, 2014). Building on a substantial body proached as a form of decision making under risk. This builds of behavioral results, recent work has also focused on the de- on other research which examines motor planning as a form velopment of computational models that explain and predict of decision making (Trommershauser¨ et al., 2008; Wolpert limits in memory performance, on the basis of information & Landy, 2012) and which similarly asks: How do the costs theory (Sims, Jacobs, & Knill, 2012; Orhan, Sims, Jacobs, & of motor error influence motor planning? We add to this re- Knill, 2014; Sims, 2015) or theories based on limits in neu- search by studying how imposed costs affect visual spatial ral coding (Franconeri, Alvarez, & Cavanagh, 2013; Bays, memory as well as the planning of hand movements on the 2014). basis of remembered information. Limits in visual memory, though extensively studied, are An important and closely related question is whether ex- not equally well understood in terms of how they influence ternal costs bias the contents of visual memory, or rather, behavior in ecological tasks, such as in motor planning and whether costs influence how people act on the basis of un- execution. What we are still largely left asking is the follow- certain memory information. Previous research in categori- ing: How is VWM used in natural tasks, and how might the cal perception (Goldstone & Hendrickson, 2010) has demon- costs of misremembering influence how and what we remem- strated that the categorical structure of visual information in- ber? fluences our ability to discriminate between objects. Categor- Hollingworh, Richard, and Luck (2008) demonstrated that ical perception effects raise the possibility that the costs of visual working memory is important for a range of natu- memory error may similarly bias the contents of visual work- ral tasks, including gaze correction following saccadic error. ing memory. In the context of remembering spatial informa- 1296 tion, the sensitivity of VWM to the costs of memory error (a) Stimulus presentation 1500 ms might lead to biases in the recall of spatial locations. This possibility is further bolstered by a number of findings which show that VWM is sensitive to the statistical structure of the Retention interval 1000 ms visual environment (Orhan et al., 2014). To explore this idea, we developed a task that required par- Odd/even judgment task ticipants to remember an array of colored targets, and then 7 after the stimuli were removed, touch the remembered loca- Odd Even tion of a cued target using a stylus (Figure 1). In different Hit the start cross conditions, monetary penalties were associated with different kinds of memory errors: overshooting vs. undershooting the intended target. Successfully touching a target (hitting any- where within the target boundary) always earned the partici- pant money, but depending on condition, either overshooting or undershooting the target could decrease the participant’s total earnings. We hypothesized the following: (1) Memory precision should deteriorate with increasing set size (the number of (b) Recall Trial (c) Discrimination Trial items stored in memory). This expectation is well supported in the body of previous research (Ma et al., 2014). (2) Mean Farther aim point should differ between conditions, that is people will undershoot when there are costs for overshooting and vice Closer versa. (3) If people are sensitive to the uncertainty in their memory then they should aim further away from penalty re- [Cue to hit the orange target] gions in the large set size conditions where memory uncer- tainty is greater. Thus a strategy of under- or overshooting Figure 1: Sequence of events in the task. (a) Targets (one or the target may not represent a simple and fixed heuristic, but three annular sectors) were presented for 1,500ms, followed rather may be more intricately tied to the cost structure of by a blank retention interval. Subjects then completed an the task and to the level of uncertainty in memory. (4) The odd/even digit judgment task, and touched a start cross. De- contents of memory may also be biased by the costs associ- pending on the trial, subjects were then instructed to either (b) ated with memory error. This latter hypothesis requires dis- touch one of the targets, cued by the color of the start cross tinguishing between biases in memory representations, and (recall trial), or else (c) complete a memory discrimination participants adopting a post-mnemonic decision strategy. task and judge whether a probe stimulus was presented closer or farther than the original item. Methods Participants system (NaturalPoint OptiTrack) that recorded the spatial po- Twelve individuals (8 female) participated in the experiment sition of the tip of the stylus in real-time at 120Hz. (age range 18 to 35 years, mean 22.42). All participants reported normal or corrected-to-normal vision and no diag- Stimuli nosed motor impairments. Participants completed two exper- The memory stimuli consisted of one or three colored targets imental sessions, and were compensated a minimum of $20 (colors chosen randomly from the set blue, green, purple, and with additional monetary incentives based on performance. orange) that varied in angle and distance from the participant All subjects provided informed consent according to proce- (see Figure 1). Each target was an annular sector (i.e., a sec- dures approved by the Drexel University institutional review tion of a ring), with angular width = 10 degrees, and radial board. thickness = 6.35 cm. The target locations were defined in po- lar coordinates (angle and radial distance from the subject), Apparatus with the angle to the target center sampled from the range Stimuli were presented on a custom built “smart table”, con- (-45◦, 45◦), where 0◦indicates straight in front of the sub- sisting of a glass surface (101x64cm) backed by rear projec- ject. The radial distance to the targets varied from 12.7cm to tion film (Figure 2). A digital projector and mirror mounted 41.28cm. Target locations were randomly sampled on each below the glass were used to render stimuli onto the sur- trial subject to the constraint that targets did not overlap in face. The table height was 105cm. Participants held a stylus angle. (shown resting on the tabletop) in their dominant hand for in- The targets were rendered on top of a “white noise” pixel dicating responses.
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