Description
People tend to make little use of their full visual working memory capacity. Instead, they rely on the external world and (re)inspect information based upon current needs. Only when this ‘sampling’ is impeded, people shift to relying on memorization. Opting for either a sampling or memorization strategy, therefore, seems largely based on situational demands. Here, we characterized individual differences in strategy use, and investigated whether and how these changed in a copy task with changing task demands. Participants (n=43) rebuilt an example puzzle as fast and accurately as possible in a condition in which they could directly sample information versus a condition with a gaze-contingent waiting time. When information was directly accessible, 39.5% was identified as checker (i.e., inspecting the example >1 per item) and 60.5% as non-checker (i.e., memorizing ≥1 item per inspection). Checkers and non-checkers did not differ in performance. Having to wait for access let checkers become non-checkers. Interestingly, former checkers performed worse than those that already were non-checkers. This implies that individuals naturally adopt a visual working memory strategy that works best for them; although being able to dynamically switch between strategy types in response to situational demands, this might come at a cost of performance| Period | 15 Dec 2023 |
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| Event title | Winterconference of the Dutch Society of Brain and Cognition (NVP) |
| Event type | Conference |
| Degree of Recognition | National |