Jocelyn Tao¹ (), Alison Li¹, Dr. Tommy Sprague; ¹University of California, Santa Barbara

Why can some people easily remember misplaced items, while others forget as soon as they exit the room? This ability to encode past visual information of objects hinges on our visuospatial working memory (VSWM). The VSWM is resource-limited, which necessitates a strategic allocation of neural resources and item feature prioritization for adaptive behaviors. Our study explores the role of precursory cues (pre cues) in enhancing memory. In a 2-D delayed estimation task, participants (n = 20) were tasked to remember a target and report its location on a response cue (a circle for the radial dimension; a line for the tangential dimension). Before target stimulus presentation, participants were sometimes given a pre cue indicating the upcoming response cue. We hypothesized that VSWM would flexibly prioritize one spatial dimension over another, with pre cues guiding prioritization to boost their performance. For example, upon seeing a pre cue for the circle response cue, participants could focus on encoding the tangential dimension over the radial to maximize memory accuracy, whereas without it, they would equally encode both dimensions, spreading resources thin. However, our results found no significant performance difference with or without pre cues, suggesting limitations in dynamically encoding relevant dimensions. This has implications for understanding how we perform tasks that require spatial judgments, like estimating car positions on the highway, a skill which may be impacted in neurodegenerative or psychiatric disorders.

Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (TCS) and the UCSB Undergraduate Research & Creative Activities Grant.