Data compression in memory is a cognitive process allowing participants to cope with complexity to reduce information load. However, previous studies have not yet considered the hypothesis that this process could also lead to over-simplifying information due to haphazard amplification of the compression process itself. For instance, we could expect that the over-regularized features of a visual scene could produce false recognition of patterns, not because of storage capacity limits but because of an errant compression process. To prompt memory compression in our participants, we used multielement visual displays for which the underlying information varied in compressibility. The compressibility of our material could vary depending on the number of common features between the multi-dimensional objects in the displays. We measured both accuracy and response times by probing memory representations with probes that we hypothesized could modify the participants’ representations. We confirm that more compressible information facilitates performance, but a more novel finding is that compression can produce both typical memory errors and lengthened response times. Our findings provide clearer evidence of the forms of compression that participants carry out.

记忆中的数据压缩是一个认知过程，允许参与者应对复杂性以减少信息负载。然而，之前的研究尚未考虑这样的假设，即由于压缩过程本身的随意放大，该过程也可能导致信息过度简化。例如，我们可以预期视觉场景的过度规范化特征可能会产生错误的模式识别，这不是因为存储容量限制，而是因为错误的压缩过程。为了促使参与者的记忆压缩，我们使用了多元素视觉显示，其中基础信息的可压缩性各不相同。我们材料的可压缩性可能会因显示器中多维对象之间的共同特征数量而异。我们通过使用我们假设可以修改参与者表示的探针来探测记忆表示来测量准确性和响应时间。我们确认更多可压缩信息有助于提高性能，但更新颖的发现是压缩会产生典型的内存错误和延长响应时间。我们的发现为参与者进行的压缩形式提供了更清晰的证据。