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Working Memory Representations in Visual Cortex Mediate the Effects of Distraction

Grace E. Hallenbeck, View ORCID ProfileThomas C. Sprague, Masih Rahmati, Kartik K. Sreenivasan, Clayton E. Curtis
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.01.429259
Grace E. Hallenbeck
1Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003
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Thomas C. Sprague
1Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003
3Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106
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  • ORCID record for Thomas C. Sprague
Masih Rahmati
1Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003
4Division of Science and Mathematics, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE
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Kartik K. Sreenivasan
4Division of Science and Mathematics, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE
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Clayton E. Curtis
1Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003
2Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY 10003
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  • For correspondence: clayton.curtis@nyu.edu
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SUMMARY

Although the contents of working memory (WM) can be decoded from activity in visual cortex, these representations may play a limited role if they are not robust to distraction. Here, we used model-based fMRI to estimate the impact that a distracting visual task had on WM representations in several visual field maps in visual and frontoparietal association cortex. Distraction caused the fidelity of WM representations in all maps to briefly dip when both the memorandum and distractor were jointly encoded by the population activities. Moreover, distraction induced small biases in memory errors which were predicted by biases in neural decoding in early visual cortex, but not other regions. Although distraction briefly disrupts WM representations, the widespread redundancy with which WM information is encoded may protect against catastrophic loss. In early visual cortex, nonetheless, the neural representation of information in WM and behavioral performance were intertwined, solidifying its importance in memory.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • Conflicts of interest: The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted February 02, 2021.
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Working Memory Representations in Visual Cortex Mediate the Effects of Distraction
Grace E. Hallenbeck, Thomas C. Sprague, Masih Rahmati, Kartik K. Sreenivasan, Clayton E. Curtis
bioRxiv 2021.02.01.429259; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.01.429259
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Working Memory Representations in Visual Cortex Mediate the Effects of Distraction
Grace E. Hallenbeck, Thomas C. Sprague, Masih Rahmati, Kartik K. Sreenivasan, Clayton E. Curtis
bioRxiv 2021.02.01.429259; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.01.429259

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