Eye Movements as Proxy for Visual Working Memory Usage: Increased Reliance on the External World in Korsakoff Syndrome

In the assessment of visual working memory, estimating the maximum capacity is currently the gold standard. However, traditional tasks disregard that information generally remains available in the external world. Only when to-be-used information is not readily accessible, memory is taxed. Otherwise,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of clinical medicine 2023-05, Vol.12 (11), p.3630
Main Authors: Böing, Sanne, Ten Brink, Antonia F, Hoogerbrugge, Alex J, Oudman, Erik, Postma, Albert, Nijboer, Tanja C W, Van der Stigchel, Stefan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amnesia
Analysis
Care and treatment
Clinical medicine
Diagnosis
Eye
Eye movements
Korsakoff syndrome
Memory
Movements
Patients
Review boards
Short-term memory
Vitamin B
Vitamin deficiency
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Summary:In the assessment of visual working memory, estimating the maximum capacity is currently the gold standard. However, traditional tasks disregard that information generally remains available in the external world. Only when to-be-used information is not readily accessible, memory is taxed. Otherwise, people sample information from the environment as a form of cognitive offloading. To investigate how memory deficits impact the trade-off between sampling externally or storing internally, we compared gaze behaviour of individuals with Korsakoff amnesia ( = 24, age range 47-74 years) and healthy controls ( = 27, age range 40-81 years) on a copy task that provoked different strategies by having information freely accessible (facilitating sampling) or introducing a gaze-contingent waiting time (provoking storing). Indeed, patients sampled more often and longer, compared to controls. When sampling became time-consuming, controls reduced sampling and memorised more. Patients also showed reduced and longer sampling in this condition, suggesting an attempt at memorisation. Importantly, however, patients sampled disproportionately more often than controls, whilst accuracy dropped. This finding suggests that amnesia patients sample frequently and do not fully compensate for increased sampling costs by memorising more at once. In other words, Korsakoff amnesia resulted in a heavy reliance on the world as 'external memory'.
ISSN:2077-0383
2077-0383
DOI:10.3390/jcm12113630