Neural Mechanisms of Group Differences in Visuospatial Working Memory

Abstract

Abstract: To investigate group differences in visuospatial working memory (WM) maintenance (low-execution) and manipulation (high-execution) and to clarify the neural mechanisms underpin them, the pair-wise task of delayed recognition task (maintenance) and mental rotation task (manipulation) were carried out on both low and high WM groups while event-related brain potentials were recorded. The results revealed that 1) a significant shorter response time (RT) was made by high WM group relative to low WM group in the manipulation task, and 2) a comparable RT were made by the two groups in the maintenance task. In the maintenance task, the high WM group showed significant larger positive slow waves in the middle frontal regions. In the manipulation task, the high WM group showed significant larger positive slow waves in the middle frontal regions and greater negative slow waves in the bilateral posterior parietal regions; moreover, a significant negative correlation was found between the slow-wave amplitudes in the middle frontal and bilateral posterior parietal regions. These findings indicate that a high WM group with strong executive attention may be expert in modulating and allocating processing resources.

Key words: working memory (WM), group differences, visual representation, event-related potentials (ERPs)

摘要： 为考察视觉空间工作记忆（working memory, WM）维持和操作的组间差异及其神经机制，本研究记录了高、低WM组完成延迟再认（维持）任务和心理旋转（操作）任务时的行为和事件相关电位数据。结果发现，在操作任务中，高WM组比低WM组的反应时显著更短；高WM组的中前额叶慢波显著更正、双侧后顶区慢波显著更负，并且两者的波幅显著负相关。在维持任务中，两组被试的反应时无显著差异；高WM组的中前额叶慢波显著更正。结果表明，高WM组的执行注意能力可能更强，能通过有效调节和分配加工资源来表征视觉信息。

关键词: 工作记忆, 组间差异, 视觉表征, 事件相关电位

CLC Number:

B842

TANG Dandan, FU Yu, WU Yanjing, ZHU Hai. Neural Mechanisms of Group Differences in Visuospatial Working Memory[J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2020, 18(2): 176-184.

唐丹丹, 傅瑜, 吴燕京, 朱海. 视觉空间工作记忆组间差异的神经机制[J]. 心理与行为研究, 2020, 18(2): 176-184.

References

Awh, E., Anllo-Vento, L., & Hillyard, S. A. (2000). The role of spatial selective attention in working memory for locations: Evidence from event-related potentials. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12(5), 840-847, doi: 10.1162/089892900562444.
Baddeley, A. (1992). Working memory. Science, 255(5044), 556-559, doi: 10.1126/science.1736359.
Baddeley, A. (2003a). Working memory and language: An overview. Journal of Communication Disorders, 36(3), 189-208, doi: 10.1016/S0021-9924(03)00019-4.
Baddeley, A. (2003b). Working memory: Looking back and looking forward. Nature Review Neuroscience, 4(10), 829-839, doi: 10.1038/nrn1201.
Barrett, L. F., Tugade, M. M., & Engle, R. W. (2004). Individual differences in working memory capacity and dual-process theories of the mind. Psychological Bulletin, 130(4), 553-573, doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.130.4.553.
Beste, C., Heil, M., & Konrad, C. (2010). Individual differences in ERPs during mental rotation of characters: Lateralization, and performance level. Brain & Cognition, 72(2), 238-243, doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2009.09.005.
Bosch, V., Mecklinger, A., & Friederici, A. D. (2001). Slow cortical potentials during retention of object, spatial, and verbal information. Cognitive Brain Research, 10(3), 219-237, doi: 10.1016/S0926-6410(00)00040-9.
Boucher, O., Bastien, C. H., Muckle, G., Saint-Amour, D., Jacobson, S. W., & Jacobson, J. L. (2010). Behavioural correlates of the P3b event-related potential in school-age children. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 76(3), 148-157, doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2010.03.005.
Cohen, J. D., Perlstein, W. M., Braver, T. S., Nystrom, L. E., Noll, D. C., Jonides, J., & Smith, E. E. (1997). Temporal dynamics of brain activation during a working memory task. Nature, 386(6625), 604-608, doi: 10.1038/386604a0.
Conway, A. R. A., & Engle, R. W. (1994). Working memory and retrieval: A resource-dependent inhibition model. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123(4), 354-373, doi: 10.1037/0096-3445.123.4.354.
Conway, A. R. A., Kane, M. J., & Engle, R. W. (2003). Working memory capacity and its relation to general intelligence. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(12), 547-552, doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2003.10.005.
Corballis, P. M. (2003). Visuospatial processing and the right-hemisphere interpreter. Brain and Cognition, 53(2), 171-176, doi: 10.1016/S0278-2626(03)00103-9.
Delorme, A., & Makeig, S. (2004). EEGLAB: An open source toolbox for analysis of single-trial EEG dynamics including independent component analysis. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 134(1), 9-21, doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2003.10.009.
D’Esposito, M., Detre, J. A., Alsop, D. C., Shin, R. K., Atlas, S., & Grossman, M. (1995). The neural basis of the central executive system of working memory. Nature, 378(6554), 279-281, doi: 10.1038/378279a0.
D’Esposito, M., Postle, B. R., Ballard, D., & Lease, J. (1999). Maintenance versus manipulation of information held in working memory: An event-related fMRI study. Brain and Cognition, 41(1), 66-86, doi: 10.1006/brcg.1999.1096.
Emrich, S. M, Lockhart H. A., & Al-Aidroos, N. (2017). Attention mediates the flexible allocation of visual working memory resources. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 43(7), 1454-1465, doi: 10.1037/xhp0000398.
Engle, R. W. (2010). Role of working-memory capacity in cognitive control. Current Anthropology, 51(S1), S17-S26, doi: 10.1086/650572.
Engle, R. W. (2018). Working memory and executive attention: A revisit. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13(2), 190-193, doi: 10.1177/1745691617720478.
Gazzaley, A., Cooney, J. W., Rissman, J., & D’Esposito, M. (2005). Top-down suppression deficit underlies working memory impairment in normal aging. Nature Neuroscience, 8(10), 1298-1300, doi: 10.1038/nn1543.
Glahn, D. C., Kim, J., Cohen, M. S., Poutanen, V. P., Therman, S., Bava, S.,.. Cannon, T. D. (2002). Maintenance and manipulation in spatial working memory: Dissociations in the prefrontal cortex. NeuroImage, 17(1), 201-213, doi: 10.1006/nimg.2002.1161.
Heil, M. (2002). The functional significance of ERP effects during mental rotation. Psychophysiology, 39(5), 535-545, doi: 10.1111/1469-8986.3950535.
Heil, M., & Rolke, B. (2002). Toward a chronopsychophysiology of mental rotation. Psychophysiology, 39(4), 414-422, doi: 10.1111/1469-8986.3940414.
Hsieh, L. T., Ekstrom, A. D., & Ranganath, C. (2011). Neural oscillations associated with item and temporal order maintenance in working memory. Journal of Neuroscience, 31(30), 10803-10810, doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0828-11.2011.
Hyun, J. S., & Luck, S. J. (2007). Visual working memory as the substrate for mental rotation. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14(1), 154-158.
Jha, A. P. (2002). Tracking the time-course of attentional involvement in spatial working memory: An event-related potential investigation. Cognitive Brain Research, 15(1), 61-69, doi: 10.1016/S0926-6410(02)00216-1.
Jolles, D. D., Kleibeuker, S. W., Rombouts, S. A. R. B., & Crone, E. A. (2011). Developmental differences in prefrontal activation during working memory maintenance and manipulation for different memory loads. Developmental Science, 14(4), 713-724, doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2010.01016.x.
Jonides, J., Schumacher, E. H., Smith, E. E., Koeppe, R. A., Awh, E., Reuter-Lorenz, P. A.,.. Willis, C. R. (1998). The role of parietal cortex in verbal working memory. Journal of Neuroscience, 18(13), 5026-5034, doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.18-13-05026.1998.
Jost, K., Bryck, R. L., Vogel, E. K., & Mayr, U. (2011). Are old adults just like low working memory young adults? Filtering efficiency and age differences in visual working memory. Cerebral Cortex, 21(5), 1147-1154, doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhq185.
Kane, M. J., Bleckley, M. K., Conway, A. R. A., & Engle, R. W. (2001). A controlled-attention view of working-memory capacity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130(2), 169-183, doi: 10.1037/0096-3445.130.2.169.
Kane, M. J., & Engle, R. W. (2000). Working-memory capacity, proactive interference, and divided attention: Limits on long-term memory retrieval. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 26(2), 336-358, doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.26.2.336.
Kane, M. J., & Engle, R. W. (2003). Working-memory capacity and the control of attention: The contributions of goal neglect, response competition, and task set to Stroop interference. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 132(1), 47-70, doi: 10.1037/0096-3445.132.1.47.
Kok, A. (2001). On the utility of P3 amplitude as a measure of processing capacity. Psychophysiology, 38(3), 557-577, doi: 10.1017/S0048577201990559.
Liu, D., Guo, C. Y., & Luo, J. (2010). An electrophysiological analysis of maintenance and manipulation in working memory. Neuroscience Letters, 482(2), 123-127, doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2010.07.015.
McNab, F., & Klingberg, T. (2008). Prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia control access to working memory. Nature Neuroscience, 11(1), 103-107, doi: 10.1038/nn2024.
Mecklinger, A., & Pfeifer, E. (1996). Event-related potentials reveal topographical and temporal distinct neuronal activation patterns for spatial and object working memory. Cognitive Brain Research, 4(3), 211-224, doi: 10.1016/S0926-6410(96)00034-1.
Miyake, A., Friedman, N. P., Emerson, M. J., Witzki, A. H., Howerter, A., & Wager, T. D. (2000). The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex “frontal lobe” tasks: A latent variable analysis. Cognitive Psychology, 41(1), 49-100, doi: 10.1006/cogp.1999.0734.
Morgan, H. M., Jackson, M. C., Klein, C., Mohr, H., Shapiro, K. L., & Linden, D. E. J. (2010). Neural signatures of stimulus features in visual working memory—a spatiotemporal approach. Cerebral Cortex, 20(1), 187-197, doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhp094.
Morgan, H. M., Klein, C., Boehm, S. G., Shapiro, K. L., & Linden, D. E. J. (2008). Working memory load for faces modulates P300, N170, and N250r. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(6), 989-1002, doi: 10.1162/jocn.2008.20072.
Osaka, M., Osaka, N., Kondo, H., Morishita, M., Fukuyama, H., Aso, T., & Shibasaki, H. (2003). The neural basis of individual differences in working memory capacity: An fMRI study. NeuroImage, 18(3), 789-797, doi: 10.1016/S1053-8119(02)00032-0.
Osaka, N., Osaka, M., Kondo, H., Morishita, M., Fukuyama, H., & Shibasaki, H. (2004). The neural basis of executive function in working memory: An fMRI study based on individual differences. NeuroImage, 21(2), 623-631, doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2003.09.069.
Owen, A. M., Herrod, N. J., Menon, D. K., Clark, J. C., Downey, S. P. M. J., Carpenter, T. A.,.. Pickard, J. D. (1999). Redefining the functional organization of working memory processes within human lateral prefrontal cortex. European Journal of Neuroscience, 11(2), 567-574, doi: 10.1046/j.1460-9568.1999.00449.x.
Polich, J. (2007). Updating P300: An integrative theory of P3a and P3b. Clinical Neurophysiology, 118(10), 2128-2148, doi: 10.1016/j.clinph.2007.04.019.
Prime, D. J., & Jolicoeur, P. (2010). Mental rotation requires visual short-term memory: Evidence from human electric cortical activity. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22(11), 2437-2446, doi: 10.1162/jocn.2009.21337.
Rama, P., Sala, J. B., Gillen, J. S., Pekar, J. J., & Courtney, S. M. (2001). Dissociation of the neural systems for working memory maintenance of verbal and nonspatial visual information. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 1(2), 161-171, doi: 10.3758/CABN.1.2.161.
Redick, T. R., & Engle, R. W. (2006). Working memory capacity and attention network test performance. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20(5), 713-721, doi: 10.1002/acp.1224.
Rosen, V. M., & Engle, R. W. (1997). The role of working memory capacity in retrieval. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 126(3), 211-227, doi: 10.1037/0096-3445.126.3.211.
Rösler, F., Heil, M., & Röder, B. (1997). Slow negative brain potentials as reflections of specific modular resources of cognition. Biological Psychology, 45(1-3), 109-141, doi: 10.1016/S0301-0511(96)05225-8.
Serino, A., Ciaramelli, E., Di Santantonio, A., Malagù, S., Servadei, F., & Làdavas, E. (2006). Central executive system impairment in traumatic brain injury. Brain Injury, 20(1), 23-32, doi: 10.1080/02699050500309627.
Smith, E. E., & Jonides, J. (1997). Working memory: A view from neuroimaging. Cognitive Psychology, 33(1), 5-42, doi: 10.1006/cogp.1997.0658.
Smith, E. E., Jonides, J., & Koeppe, R. A. (1996). Dissociating verbal and spatial working memory using PET. Cerebral Cortex, 6(1), 11-20, doi: 10.1093/cercor/6.1.11.
Tang, D. D., Hu, L., Lei, Y., Li, H., & Chen, A. T. (2015). Frontal and occipital-parietal alpha oscillations distinguish between stimulus conflict and response conflict. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9, 433, doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00433.
Thakkar, K. N., & Park, S. (2012). Impaired passive maintenance and spared manipulation of internal representations in patients with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 38(4), 787-795, doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbq159.
Tseng, P., Iu, K. C., & Juan, C. H. (2018). The critical role of phase difference in theta oscillation between bilateral parietal cortices for visuospatial working memory. Scientific Reports, 8, 349, doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-18449-w.
Unsworth, N., & Engle, R. W. (2007). The nature of individual differences in working memory capacity: Active maintenance in primary memory and controlled search from secondary memory. Psychological Review, 114(1), 104-132, doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.114.1.104.
Unsworth, N., Schrock, J. C., & Engle, R. W. (2004). Working memory capacity and the antisaccade task: Individual differences in voluntary saccade control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30(6), 1302-1321, doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.30.6.1302.
Unsworth, N., & Spillers, G. J. (2010). Working memory capacity: Attention control, secondary memory, or both? A direct test of the dual-component model. Journal of Memory and Language, 62(4), 392-406, doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2010.02.001.
Vallar, G., Di Betta, A. M., & Silveri, M. C. (1997). The phonological short-term store-rehearsal system: Patterns of impairment and neural correlates. Neuropsychologia, 35(6), 795-812, doi: 10.1016/S0028-3932(96)00127-3.
Vogel, E. K., & Machizawa, M. G. (2004). Neural activity predicts individual differences in visual working memory capacity. Nature, 428(6984), 748-751, doi: 10.1038/nature02447.
Vogel, E. K., McCollough, A. W., & Machizawa, M. G. (2005). Neural measures reveal individual differences in controlling access to working memory. Nature, 438(7067), 500-503, doi: 10.1038/nature04171.
Wijers, A. A., Otten, L. J., Feenstra, S., Mulder, G., & Mulder, L. J. M. (1989). Brain potentials during selective attention, memory search, and mental rotation. Psychophysiology, 26(4), 452-467, doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8986.1989.tb01951.x.
Zanto, T. P., & Gazzaley, A. (2009). Neural suppression of irrelevant information underlies optimal working memory performance. Journal of Neuroscience, 29(10), 3059-3066, doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4621-08.2009.

[1]	LI Chengshi, BAI Xuejun, WANG Yongsheng. The Influence of Mapping Concreteness and Contextual Clues on Novel Metaphor Processing [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2020, 18(2): 153-160.
[2]	ZENG Qing, ZHENG XiFu. The Time-course Difference of the Attention Paid by High Disgust Sensitivity and Low Disgust Sensitivity Individuals when Processing Different Emotional Pictures: An Event-related Potentials Study [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2019, 17(6): 743-749.
[3]	SONG Juan, WEI Yanqiu, DU Meng, XIE Hongyu, LIAN Tao, HU Yaqi, MA Ou. Effect of Eye Emotional Information on Pain Empathy: An ERP Study [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2019, 17(3): 326-332,347.
[4]	TANG Dandan, PENG Weiwei, YANG Qingsong, CHEN Antao, CHEN Xuefei. The Event-Related Potentials Characteristics of Stimulus-and Response-Conflicts: Centro-Parietal P3 [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2018, 16(1): 31-36.
[5]	Tan Gang, Hou Yuling, Cao Zhipeng. Neural Correlates of Compound Remote Associate Problems: An ERP Study [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2013, 11(6): 746-751.