Retinotopic memory is more precise than spatiotopic memory
Open accessAbstract
Successful visually guided behavior requires information about spatiotopic (i.e., world-centered) locations, but how accurately is this information actually derived from initial retinotopic (i.e., eye-centered) visual input? We conducted a spatial working memory task in which subjects remembered a cued location in spatiotopic or retinotopic coordinates while making guided eye movements during the memory delay. Surprisingly, after a saccade, subjects were significantly more accurate and precise at reporting retinotopic locations than spatiotopic locations. This difference grew with each eye movement, such that spatiotopic memory continued to deteriorate, whereas retinotopic memory did not accumulate error. The loss in spatiotopic fidelity is therefore not a generic consequence of eye movements, but a direct result of converting visual information from native retinotopic coordinates. Thus, despite our conscious experience of an effortlessly stable spatiotopic world and our lifetime of practice with spatiotopic tasks, memory is actually more reliable in raw retinotopic coordinates than in ecologically relevant spatiotopic coordinates.
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The brain uses visual information in both retinotopic and spatiotopic coordinate systems.
“Although action and perception use the transformed spatiotopic coordinates, there is experimental evidence that the brain uses visual information in both retinotopic [9] and spatiotopic [10] coordinate systems.”
From Eye movements and the perceived location of phosphenes generated by intracranial primary visual cortex stimulation in the blind (2021) · cites this paper as [9]
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- Authors
- Golomb, J. D., & Kanwisher, N.
- Affiliations
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2012-01-17
- Volume
- 109
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 1796-1801
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC3277191
- OpenAlex
- W2003003284
- Cited by
- 69
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 2.78
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- National Eye Institute (R01-EY13455, F32EY020157, R01EY013455)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Motor Control and Adaptation
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Keywords
- spatial working memory, eye movements, saccades, memory precision, memory accuracy, coordinate transformation, visual localization
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Female, Humans, Male, Memory, Retina, Saccades, Reproducibility of Results, Young Adult
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