| In a complex visual environment,working memory can encode,retain and extract selected visual information.Due to the limited capacity,the representation precision of different information in working memory is also different.On the one hand,more resources are allocated to projects that are most relevant to the task at hand.On the other hand,resource allocation may change dynamically as task requirements change.Reward is closely related to income,which is an important factor to regulate resource allocation and its change and improve human memory and learning.However,it is not clear whether and how reward cues presented during the maintenance and retrieval phases modulate changes in working memory resource allocation.Therefore,this study aims to explore the regulating effect of reward on the allocation of working memory resources and its mechanism,so as to propose more effective measures to improve learning and life.In study 1,the effect of reward on the allocation of working memory resources was investigated in the maintenance(Experiment 1)and retrieval(Experiment 2)phases.Both experiments 1 and 2 included three stages: pre-test,reward association learning and post-test.In the pre-test phase,two cues of different colors were presented successively to guide the focus of attention to switch between different items to manipulate the changes in resource allocation.In the reward association learning stage,cue colors are associated with values.The post-test task was exactly the same as the pre-test,but the color of the cue suggested the reward for the correct response.Through the analysis and comparison of pre-test and post-test,the moderating effect of reward on the change of working memory resource allocation and its cognitive mechanism were investigated.The findings of Study 1 were further verified in Study 2 after the expected interference was eliminated.In order to eliminate the expected interference,20% filling trials were added in the pre-test and post-test stages respectively,so that the subjects could not guess the color of the second clue based on the color of the first clue.At the same time,the confidence judgment was used to assess whether the subjects could predict the color of the second cue to ensure that the manipulation was effective.Experiments3 and 4 focused on the maintenance and retrieval phases respectively.The results of study 1 and Study 2 were basically the same.Combining the results of the two studies,it was found that in the maintenance,the memory accuracy was improved regardless of whether high reward item is prompted first or later(Experiments 1 and 3).In the retrieval,it was suggested that the project performance was not affected by the reward,and then it was suggested that the project performance increased with the increase of the reward level(Experiments 2 and 4).In addition,all experiments found that overall memory performance was unaffected regardless of whether the high-reward or low-reward items were presented first.The following conclusions are reached in this study:(1)During the maintenance and retrieval,rewards can regulate the continuously changing process of resource allocation.But the regulatory effect of rewards is more flexible in the maintenance stage.(2)During the maintenance and retrieval,rewards have different moderating effects on items at different locations.In the maintenance,rewards mainly regulate the items that are prompted by cues first;In the retrieval,rewards mainly regulate the memory performance of post cue items.(3)The moderating effect of rewards in both the maintenance and retrieval stages supports the resource model. |
