AUTHOR=Li Qiankai , Chen Zhen , Sun Qi , Li Xinyu TITLE=Which factor affects the storage of real-world object information in visual working memory: perceptual or conceptual information? JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology VOLUME=14 YEAR=2023 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1239485 DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1239485 ISSN=1664-1078 ABSTRACT=

Visual working memory (VWM) is a limited dynamic memory system where people temporarily store and process visual information. Previous research showed that real-world objects do not have a fixed capacity compared to simple ones. In konkle’s study, they found that the conceptual information and perception information of real-world objects had different effects on visual long-term memory (VLTM) capacity. VLTM capacity was more dependent on conceptual information than the perceptual distinctiveness of real-world objects. However, we did not know how the intrinsic attribute of real-world objects affects VWM capacity yet. In the current research, we set five experiments to explore the comparative effects of conceptual vs. perceptual information of real-world objects in VWM capacity. Our results suggested that VWM capacity was more dependent on the perceptual distinctiveness of real-world objects than on conceptual structure. These data provide evidence that VWM capacity for real-world objects depends more on perceptual information than on conceptual structure.