RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 “Leader–Follower” Dynamic Perturbation Manipulates Multi-Item Working Memory in Humans
JF eneuro
JO eNeuro
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP ENEURO.0472-22.2023
DO 10.1523/ENEURO.0472-22.2023
VO 10
IS 11
A1 Huang, Qiaoli
A1 Luo, Minghao
A1 Mi, Yuanyuan
A1 Luo, Huan
YR 2023
UL http://www.eneuro.org/content/10/11/ENEURO.0472-22.2023.abstract
AB Manipulating working memory (WM) is a central yet challenging notion. Previous studies suggest that WM items with varied memory strengths reactivate at different latencies, supporting a time-based mechanism. Motivated by this view, here we developed a purely bottom-up “Leader–Follower” behavioral approach to manipulate WM in humans. Specifically, task-irrelevant flickering color disks that are bound to each of the memorized items are presented during the delay period, and the ongoing luminance sequences of the color disks follow a Leader–Follower relationship, that is, a hundreds of milliseconds temporal lag. We show that this dynamic behavioral approach leads to better memory performance for the item associated with the temporally advanced luminance sequence (Leader) than the item with the temporally lagged luminance sequence (Follower), yet with limited effectiveness. Together, our findings constitute evidence for the essential role of temporal dynamics in WM operation and offer a promising, noninvasive WM manipulation approach.