Rania Qais¹ (), Shlomit Yuval-Greenberg^1,2; ¹Israel

Visual working memory (VWM), the ability to maintain visual information, is typically studied using a change detection task where participants observe a set of items that disappear and then reappear either identical or altered and are asked to identify changes. Studies using this task have shown that observers can store around 3–4 items in their VWM. However, how this lab-based capacity relates to VWM utilization in natural environments remains unclear. Specifically, in real-world settings, items do not typically disappear and reappear as they do on a computer screen. Instead, the primary mechanism by which items are brought into or removed from the visual field is through saccadic eye-movements. Correspondingly, the central role of VWM is to store information across eye-movements. We present a novel task to explore the link between saccades and VWM. In two experiments, participants (N = 46) compared two sets of items to identify the item common to both. They either moved their eyes freely between the two sets (eye-switch) or switched between them by pressing a button (manual-switch). We measured the number of saccades performed within each set before switching to the second set, and used this as an index to assess the number of items stored in VWM, reflecting VWM utilization. Results showed fewer saccades within a set—indicating reduced VWM utilization—in the eye-switch condition compared to the manual-switch condition. Furthermore, increasing cognitive load (i.e. increasing the number of items) reduced VWM utilization in the eye-switch condition, while the opposite effect was observed with the manual-switch. These findings demonstrate that VWM remains underutilized in naturalistic settings, where saccades play a critical role in determining reliance on memory. They also highlight the importance of considering eye-movements when studying VWM and emphasize that task design influences the balance between working memory and perceptual strategies.

Acknowledgements: The study was funded by ISF grant 1960/19 to S-Y.G