Extended Data Fig. 1: Behaviour was consistent across monkeys and selection mitigated the decay of memories over time.
From: Shared mechanisms underlie the control of working memory and attention
a, b, Mean absolute angular error (a) and mean mixture model parameter fits (b) in the main experiment (experiment 1) (Fig. 1a) for each monkey (Methods). Violin plots depict bootstrapped distribution across sessions (n = 10 for monkey 1 and n = 13 for monkey 2). Lines indicate pairwise comparisons. Although monkey 1 performed slightly better than monkey 2, they displayed similar patterns of performance across conditions. c, Distribution of reported colours and absolute angular error as a function of target colour in experiment 1 for each monkey for pro and retro trials. The distributions of reported colours for each condition and monkey were significantly non-uniform (entropy of report distribution significantly lower than entropy of the target distribution, all P < 0.001, bootstrap across n = 3,873 (pro) and 3,943 (retro) trials for monkey 1 and n = 4,440 and 4,769 trials for monkey 2). Details of this behaviour have previously been published30. d, Mixture model parameter fits of behaviour pooled across monkeys for experiment 1 (bootstrap across n = 23 sessions). e, Top, in a separate behavioural experiment (experiment 2), we fixed the total memory delay of the retro condition and systematically varied the length of the delay between stimulus offset and cue onset. Bottom, increasing the time before selection (x-axis) increased mean absolute angular error (53.1°, 54.4°, and 57.8° for 0.5 s, 1 s, and 1.5 s post-stimulus, respectively; distributions are 1,000 bootstrap resamples across n = 3,306, 3,287, and 3,322 trials, respectively). f, Mixture model parameter fits, pooled across monkeys (1,000 bootstrap resamples across n = 24 sessions), for experiment 2. Linear regression showed that earlier cues improved the precision of memory reports in experiment 2 (β = 3.95 ± 1.88 (s.e.m.), P = 0.012, bootstrap) but did not significantly change the probability of forgetting (that is, random responses; β = 0.03 ± 0.03 (s.e.m.), P = 0.126, bootstrap). Bars and asterisks in all panels reflect two-sided uncorrected randomization tests: ·P < 0.1, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001.
