Authors
Joan Danielle K. Ongchoco, Brian J Scholl
Publication date
2019/6/1
Journal
Cognition
Volume
187
Pages
188-197
Publisher
Elsevier
Description
For working memory to be efficient, it is important not only to remember, but also to forget—thus freeing up memory for additional information. But what triggers forgetting? Beyond continuous temporal decay, memory is thought to be effectively ‘flushed’ to some degree at discrete event boundaries—i.e. when one event ends and another begins. But this framework does not readily apply to real-world visual experience, where events are constantly and asynchronously beginning, unfolding, and ending all around us. In this rush of things always happening, when might memory be flushed? In a series of experiments, we explored this using maximally simple visual events. A number of dots appeared, a subset moved at random speeds in random directions, and observers simply had to estimate the number of dots that moved. Critically, however, these motions could begin and end asynchronously. In general …
Total citations
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