Stroboscopic
training, performing a physical activity while using eyewear that
simulates a strobe-like experience, has been found to increase visual
short-term memory retention, and the effects lasted 24 hours.
Participants
in a Duke University study engaged in physical activities, such as
playing catch, while using either specialized eyewear that limits vision
to only brief snapshots or while using eyewear with clear lenses that
provides uninterrupted vision. Participants completed a computer-based
visual memory test before and after the physical activities. Research
participants came from the Duke community. Many were recruited from
University-organized sports teams, including varsity-level players. The
study found that participants who trained with the strobe eyewear gained
a boost in visual memory abilities.
Participants
completed a memory test that required them to note the identity of
eight letters of the alphabet that were briefly displayed on a computer
screen. After a variable delay, participants were asked to recall one of
the eight letters. On easy-level trials, the recall prompt came
immediately after the letters disappeared, but on more difficult trials,
the prompt came as late as 2.5 seconds following the display. Because
participants did not know which letter they would be asked to recall,
they had to retain all of the items in memory.
“Humans
have a memory buffer in their brain that keeps information alive for a
certain short-lived period,” said Greg Appelbaum, assistant professor of
psychiatry at Duke University and first author of the study. “Wearing
the strobe eyewear during the physical training seemed to boost the
ability to retain information in this buffer.”
The
strobe eyewear disrupts vision by only allowing the user to see
glimpses of the world. The user must adjust their visual processing in
order to perform normally, and this adjustment produces a lingering
benefit; once participants removed the strobe eyewear, there was an
observed boost in their visual memory retention, which was found to last
24 hours.
Earlier
work by Appelbaum and the project’s senior researcher, Stephen Mitroff,
had shown that stroboscopic training improves visual perception,
including the ability to detect subtle motion cues and the processing of
briefly presented visual information. Yet the earlier study had not
determined how long the benefits might last.
“Our
earlier work on stroboscopic training showed that it can improve
perceptual abilities, but we don’t know exactly how,” says Mitroff,
associate professor of psychology & neuroscience and member of the
Duke Institute for Brain Sciences. “This project takes a big step by
showing that these improved perceptual abilities are driven, at least in
part, by improvements in visual memory.”
“Improving
human cognition is an important goal with so many benefits,” said
Appelbaum, also a member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences.
“Interestingly, our findings demonstrate one way in which visual
experience has the capacity to improve cognition.”
Participants
for the study came from the 2010-2011 Duke University men’s and women’s
varsity soccer teams, Duke’s 2010-2011 men’s basketball team and
members of the general Duke community. Mitroff reported that
participants had little or no trouble with the stroboscopic training,
and several participants later returned to inquire about how they could
be involved as research assistants.
The research was supported by Nike SPARQ Sensory Performance,
who designed the eyewear and is marketing it as Nike SPARQ Vapor
Strobe. The study appears online July 19 in Attention, Perception, &
Psychophysics.
Stroboscopic visual training improves information encoding in short-term memory
Source: Duke University
