Jelmer P. Borst

eLife Assessment Weindel et al. examine behavioral and EEG data in an innovative contrast comparison paradigm where they vary mean contrast widely while keeping contrast difference constant. As intended, this allowed an elegant decomposition of processing stages: while sensory encoding shortened with increasing contrast in keeping with Pieron’s law, the period of decision formation lengthened, in keeping with Fechner’s law, which was applied to drift rates in a diffusion model of that period.

Abstract Functionally active and passive states in working memory have been related to different neural mechanisms. Memoranda in active states might be maintained by persistent neural firing, whereas memoranda in passive states might be maintained through short-term synaptic plasticity. We reasoned that this might make these items differentially susceptible to interference during maintenance, in particular that passively maintained items might be more robust.

We constantly try to interpret our environment. For example, when driving and seeing a sequence of letters on a road sign, we intuitively try to read it to not miss out on important information. In these situations, a process to determine whether such a sequences of letters actually corresponds to a word might precede our reading attempts.