MA student in the Institute of Brain and Psychological Sciences of Sichuan Normal University in China, with 2.5 years of experience in visual working memory research and two published English papers, capable of behavioral/EEG experiment program coding, data collection, and data analysis.

I am working with Dr. Chaoxiong Ye in Ye’s Lab which conducts studies on visual working memory, attention, memorability and some interesting topics.

he psychology initially attracts my interest due to its extensive relations with individual lives. I still remember the shock when I tubed a piece of paper and made a hole appear on my hand using the integration of binocular vision. Interests in mechanisms of sensory phenomenon drives me to be devoted to a project focusing on the integration phase of real-word objects with spatial principles (like a lamp on a desk rather than under a desk) in VWM. Although we did not find online integration of real objects, the exquisite experimental design with sequential display and flexible process of online representations drew me to further research on VWM representations. We used retro-cues (cues after the offset of memory array) to arrange VWM resources among representations and used masks/secondary cognitive tasks to interrupt focused attention on specific representations. We also measured ERP components to observe the effect of negative emotion on online filtering in VWM. In these projects, I gradually realize the core function of attention in the process and storage of VWM and the dual impact of top-down vs. bottom-up attention on representation maintenance dependent on task relevance. Visual distractors in the maintenance phase of VWM capture bottom-up attention and might impair VWM representations, whereas task-related instructions guide top-down attention and might take on protection effect. Therefore, we might suppression bottom-up attention and distractor encoding through the manipulation of top-down attention on the maintained representations.

You can find my CV here: CV_Ruyi Liu.

What’s new

• 2024.01 Accomplish my graduate dissertation but it is faced with revision according reviewer suggestion in the following 3 months. We found that the negative emotional state impairs distractor filtering in VMW.
• 2024.01 Finish the revision of our supplementary materials for “A negative emotional state impairs individuals’ ability to filter out distractors from working memory: An ERP study.”
• 2023.12 Participate the a project on familiarity vs. memorability. Collect 50+ behavioral data.
• 2023.11 Attend IETS test.
• 2023.10 Prepare posters and manuscripts for a poster presentation in Psychonomic Society’s 64th Annual Meeting (California, USA).
• 2023.09 Collect 30+ EEG data for a project on memorability.
• 2023.08 Prepare a manuscript in the project on double feature-based RCB.
• 2023.07 Finish the third version of our manuscript and supplementary materials for “A negative emotional state impairs individuals’ ability to filter out distractors from working memory: An ERP study.”
• 2023.06 Attend Working Memory Symposium 2023 (online). Make an oral presentation claiming that the refocused feature is memorized not worse than the focused feature in visual working memory, and therefore probably without an attention shift cost, examined with a double retro-cue paradigm.
• 2023.05 - 2023.06 Attend the Attention Bias Summer Camp of Prof. Hong-jin Sun (Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University). Present three lectures on attention and its interaction with working memory, and organize the symposium among attendees, including undergraduate students in McMaster University and graduate students in several universities in China.
• 2023.05 Finish the revision of our manuscript “Sustained attention required for effective dimension-based retro-cue benefit in visual working memory.” We found that sustained attention is necessary to effectively prioritize representations of a feature (dimension) in VWM. This is published in Journal of Vision.
• 2023.04 Collect 30+ EEG data for a project on memorability.
• 2023.03 Finish the second version of our manuscript “The effect of negative emotional state on VWM storage and distractor filtering: An ERP study.”
• 2022.12 Participate in the project on the impact of interruption on dimension-based RCB.
• 2022.12 Participate in the project on memorability. Code a progrm for an ERP study. Collect 3 data in the prior experiment.
• 2022.10 Finish the first version of our manuscript “A re-attended feature of visual information exists in working memory.” We found that the unfocused feature exists in VWM and is improved after being re-attended. However, this version is refused to publish in peer review of JEP:LMC.
• 2022.09 Finish the first version of our manuscript “An Effect of task-irrelevant negative emotional stimuli on distractor filtering in VWM: An ERP study.” We found that the task-irrelevant negative emotional stimuli before memory array impairs distractor filtering in VMW.
• 2022.08 Finish the revision of our manuscript “Encoding specificity instead of online integration of real-world spatial regularities for objects in working memory.” We found that real objects are grouped according spatial regularities in the encoding rather than maintenance phase of visual working memory. This is published in Journal of Vision.
• 2022.07 Collect 40+ behavioral data for the project on double feature-based RCB.
• 2022.06 Collect 20+ behavioral data for the project on integration phase of real-world objects in VWM.
• 2022.06 Attend Visual Science Society 2022 online. Present a talk claiming that real objects are grouped according spatial regularities in the encoding rather than maintenance phase of visual working memory.
• 2022.05 Finish the revision of our manuscript “The Performance Difference of Visual Working Memory between Various Emotional Faces.” This is a review article published in Advances in Psychology (Chinese Journal).
• 2022.04 Participate in the project on the impact of negative emotional state on filtering.
• 2022.04 Finish the revision of our manuscript “The Influencing Factors of Retro-Cue Effect in Visual Working Memory.” This is a review article published in Advances in Psychology (Chinese Journal).
• 2022.03 Participate in the project on double feature-based RCB.
• 2022.03 Finish the revision of our manuscript “The Representation Unit of Visual Working Memory.” This is a review article published in Advances in Psychology (Chinese Journal).
• 2021.11 Participate in the project on integration phase of real-world objects in VWM.
• 2021.09 Begin my graduate study on psychology in Sichuan Normal University.

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