Schedule of Events | Symposia

Content-independent pointers mediate working memory storage for both visual and verbal stimuli

Poster Session B - Sunday, March 30, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Woohyeuk Chang¹ (woohyeukchang@uchicago.edu), Will Epstein¹, Will Ngiam², Henry Jones¹, Ed Awh¹; ¹University of Chicago, ²University of Adelaide

Visual working memory (VWM) and verbal working memory have often been treated as distinct processes. However, recent research suggests potential overlap between these two forms of memory. For instance, varying the number of letters and words elicits similar contralateral delay activity (CDA)—a load-sensitive electrophysiological signature of VWM that has typically been examined with visual stimuli (e.g., colored squares; Rajsic et al., 2019). In a re-analysis of these data, we applied multivariate load decoding and representational similarity analysis (RSA) to confirm the presence of a generalized load signal across words and colors, while also demonstrating that distinct variance in EEG activity tracked the stored content (words versus colors). To further test this finding, we replicated the study while eliminating perceptual differences by presenting colored words and asking observers to selectively store one of the features. Once again, we observed a generalized load signal across color and word features, even while other aspects of EEG activity tracked the attended feature. These results strengthen the case for a distinction between neural activity related to content-independent “pointers” and parallel neural signals that track the stored feature values.

Topic Area: EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory