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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2023.06.19.545421

Contralateral delay activity and alpha lateralization reflect retinotopic and screen-centered reference frames in visual memory

Moessing, W.·Schroeder, S. C.·Biel, A. L.·Busch, N. A.
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Abstract

The visual system represents objects in a lateralized manner, with contralateral cortical hemispheres responsible for left and right visual hemifields. This organization extends to visual short-term memory (VSTM), as evidenced by electrophysiological indices of VSTM maintenance: contralateral delay activity (CDA) and alpha-band lateralization. However, it remains unclear if VSTM represents object locations in gaze-centered (retinotopic) or screen-centered (spatiotopic) coordinates, especially after eye movements. In two experiments, participants encoded the colors of target objects and made a lateral saccade during the maintenance interval, thereby shifting the objects location on the retina. A non-lateralized probe stimulus was then presented at the new fixation for a change detection task. The CDA maintained lateralization towards the targets original retinotopic location, unaffected by subsequent saccades, and did not invert polarity even when a saccade brought that location into the opposite hemifield. We also found conventional alpha lateralization towards the targets location before a saccade. After a saccade, however, alpha was lateralized towards the screen center regardless of the targets original location, even in a control condition without any memory requirements. This suggest that post-saccadic alpha-band lateralization reflects attentional processes unrelated to memory, while pre- and post-saccade CDA reflect VSTM maintenance in a retinotopic reference frame.

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Moessing, W., Schroeder, S. C., Biel, A. L., Busch, N. A.. 2023-06-21. Contralateral delay activity and alpha lateralization reflect retinotopic and screen-centered reference frames in visual memory. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.06.19.545421

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