Visual memory for objects involves the integration, or binding, of individual features into a coherent representation. We used a novel approach to assess feature binding, using a delayed-reproduction task in combination with computational modeling and lesion analysis. We assessed stroke patients and neurotypical controls on a visual working memory task in which spatial arrays of colored disks were presented. After a brief delay, participants either had to report the color of one disk cued by its location or the location of one disk cued by its color. Our results demonstrate that, in the controls, report imprecision and swap errors (non-target reports) can be explained by a single source of variability. Stroke patients showed an overall decrease in memory precision for both color and location, with only limited evidence for deviations from the predicted relationship between report precision and swap errors. These deviations were primarily deficits in reporting items rather than selecting items based on the cue. Atlas-based lesion-symptom mapping showed that selection and reporting deficits, precision in reporting color, and precision in reporting location were associated with different lesion profiles. Deficits in binding are associated with lesions in the left somatosensory cortex, deficits in the precision of reporting color with bilateral fronto-parietal regions, and no anatomical substrates were identified for precision in reporting location. Our results converge with previous reports that working memory representations are widely distributed in the brain and can be found across sensory, parietal, temporal, and prefrontal cortices. Stroke patients demonstrate mostly subtle impairments in visual working memory, perhaps because representations from different areas in the brain can partly compensate for impaired encoding in lesioned areas. These findings contribute to understanding of the relation between memorizing features and their bound representations.

对象的视觉记忆涉及将单个特征集成或绑定到一个连贯的表示中。我们使用了一种新方法来评估特征绑定，将延迟再现任务与计算建模和病变分析相结合。我们在视觉工作记忆任务中评估了中风患者和神经典型控制，其中呈现了彩色磁盘的空间阵列。在短暂的延迟之后，参与者必须报告由其位置提示的一个圆盘的颜色或由其颜色提示的一个圆盘的位置。我们的结果表明，在控制中，报告不精确和交换错误（非目标报告）可以用单一的变异源来解释。中风患者对颜色和位置的记忆精度总体下降，只有有限的证据表明报告精度和交换错误之间的预测关系存在偏差。这些偏差主要是报告项目的缺陷，而不是根据提示选择项目。基于图谱的病变症状映射显示选择和报告缺陷、报告颜色的精确度和报告位置的精确度与不同的病变轮廓相关。结合缺陷与左侧躯体感觉皮层的病变、双侧额顶叶区域报告颜色的精确性缺陷以及报告位置的精确性没有确定解剖底物有关。我们的结果与之前的报告一致，即工作记忆表征广泛分布在大脑中，可以在感觉、顶叶、颞叶和前额叶皮层中找到。中风患者大多表现出视觉工作记忆的轻微损伤，这可能是因为来自大脑不同区域的表征可以部分补偿受损区域的编码受损。这些发现有助于理解记忆特征与其边界表示之间的关系。