Over past couple of decades our understanding of visual working memory (VWM), and working memory in general, has been predominantly in line with the capacity debate. We recently opened a new line of inquiry regarding the recall of a single object to go beyond the capacity debate, and showed that a series of feature probe questions about a single object yields poorer recall later in the sequence (Sengupta et al, 2020). In the current work we focused on another aspect of sequential feature recall - mainly regarding whether recall can be improved by asking the same question twice. To that end, we chose to focus on two features - color and location, and we contrasted repeat and non-repeat (from the standpoint of feature questions) trials in a series of two experiments. In repeat trials either color or location would be probed twice consecutively. In non-repeat trials color and location probes were presented one after the other in random order. In all trials the stimulus was a small colored oriented line presented for 1 sec in a location within 4o of visual angle. The recall of color and location were mapped onto continuous variable like Sengupta et al, 2020 - for instance, color recall was mapped onto a color wheel. In the first experiment, we used an unaltered color wheel when the color question was repeated. For the second experiment, we used a rotated color wheels for two consecutive color recall trials. We observed an increase in recall error for both repeat and non-repeat condition for location when the probe was at the second question in both experiments. However, color recall error did not increase for second repeat question condition in Experiment 1 as opposed to the non-repeat condition. On the other hand, in Experiment 2 we observed the expected increase in recall error for both repeat and non repeat condition for color probe at the second question. This maybe due to the fact that participants used an ‘anchoring’ strategy in Experiment 1 by remembering where they clicked on the color wheel in the first question. The rotation of color wheel in second experiment destroys the anchor leading to the aforementioned result. The results show that trying to recall the same feature again leads to degradation of recall accuracy for both color and location, and human beings may use different strategies for recall in working memory tasks.

中文翻译：

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策略指南的功能是回忆工作记忆任务中的单个对象

在过去的几十年中，我们对视觉工作记忆（VWM）以及一般的工作记忆的理解主要与能力辩论相符。我们最近开了一条关于召回单个对象的新查询线，超出了能力讨论的范围，并显示了一系列有关单个对象的特征探测问题在随后的序列中召回率较差（Sengupta等，2020）。在当前的工作中，我们专注于顺序特征调用的另一个方面-主要涉及通过两次询问相同的问题是否可以改善召回。为此，我们选择关注两个特征-颜色和位置，并在一系列两个实验中对比了重复和不重复（从特征问题的角度）试验。在重复试验中，将连续两次对颜色或位置进行探测。在非重复试验中，颜色和位置探针以随机顺序一个接一个地出现。在所有试验中，刺激是在视角4o以内的1秒钟出现一条彩色的彩色定向线。颜色和位置的召回映射到Sengupta等人，2020等连续变量上-例如，颜色召回被映射到色轮上。在第一个实验中，当重复出现颜色问题时，我们使用了不变的色轮。在第二个实验中，我们使用旋转的色轮进行了两次连续的色彩记忆试验。当探针在两个实验中都处于第二个问题时，我们观察到重复和非重复位置定位条件的召回误差均增加。然而，与非重复条件相比，实验1中第二个重复问题条件的颜色记忆回忆错误没有增加。另一方面，在实验2中，我们观察到第二个问题的彩色探针重复和非重复条件下的召回误差的预期增加。这可能是由于以下事实：参与者在实验1中使用了“锚定”策略，即记住了他们在第一个问题中点击了色轮的位置。在第二个实验中，色轮的旋转破坏了锚，从而导致上述结果。结果表明，再次调用同一功能会导致颜色和位置的调用准确性下降，并且人类可能在工作记忆任务中使用不同的策略进行调用。在实验2中，我们观察到第二个问题的彩色探针重复和非重复条件下的召回误差的预期增加。这可能是由于以下事实：参与者在实验1中使用了“锚定”策略，即记住了他们在第一个问题中点击了色轮的位置。在第二个实验中，色轮的旋转破坏了锚，从而导致上述结果。结果表明，再次调用同一功能会导致颜色和位置的调用准确性下降，并且人类可能在工作记忆任务中使用不同的策略进行调用。在实验2中，我们观察到第二个问题的彩色探针重复和非重复条件下的召回误差的预期增加。这可能是由于以下事实：参与者在实验1中使用了“锚定”策略，即记住了他们在第一个问题中点击了色轮的位置。在第二个实验中，色轮的旋转破坏了锚，从而导致上述结果。结果表明，再次调用同一功能会导致颜色和位置的调用准确性下降，并且人类可能在工作记忆任务中使用不同的策略进行调用。这可能是由于以下事实：参与者在实验1中使用了“锚定”策略，即记住了他们在第一个问题中点击了色轮的位置。在第二个实验中，色轮的旋转破坏了锚，从而导致上述结果。结果表明，再次调用同一功能会导致颜色和位置的调用准确性下降，并且人类可能在工作记忆任务中使用不同的策略进行调用。这可能是由于以下事实：参与者在实验1中使用了“锚定”策略，即记住了他们在第一个问题中点击了色轮的位置。在第二个实验中，色轮的旋转破坏了锚，从而导致上述结果。结果表明，再次调用同一功能会导致颜色和位置的调用准确性下降，并且人类可能在工作记忆任务中使用不同的策略进行调用。