Abstract
A key claim differentiating "resource" from "slot" models of WM is that resources can be allocated flexibly, enhancing the mnemonic precision of some visual elements at a cost to others. While salient visual events are found to have a short-lived influence on WM that is rapidly suppressed, informative cues lead to a long-lasting reallocation of resources. We argue that resource limits in working memory are a direct consequence of stochasticity (noise) in neural representations. A model based on population coding reproduces the empirical relationship between error distributions and memory load and demonstrates that observers allocate limited neural resources in a near-optimal fashion.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2013