Memory Representations in Natural Tasks

TLDR

Short‑term memory has a limited capacity, and most research has examined its bounds in memorization tasks rather than everyday activities. The study aimed to investigate how short‑term memory is employed during a natural hand‑eye task in which participants freely select task parameters. Researchers designed experiments that serially processed the task using eye movements, allowing participants to postpone gathering task‑relevant information until just before it was needed. Participants consistently avoided operating at maximum short‑term memory capacity, instead minimizing its use, a behavior that can be explained by the high cost of memory relative to the serializing strategy.

Abstract

Abstract The very limited capacity of short-term or working memory is one of the most prominent features of human cognition. Most studies have stressed delimiting the upper bounds of this memory in memorization tasks rather than the performance of everyday tasks. We designed a series of experiments to test the use of short-term memory in the course of a natural hand-eye task where subjects have the freedom to choose their own task parameters. In this case subjects choose not to operate at the maximum capacity of short-term memory but instead seek to minimize its use. In particular, reducing the instantaneous memory required to perform the task can be done by serializing the task with eye movements. These eye movements allow subjects to postpone the gathering of task-relevant information until just before it is required. The reluctance to use short-term memory can be explained if such memory is expensive to use with respect to the cost of the serializing strategy.