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Neural Mechanisms of Resource Allocation in Working Memory

This repository contains data and code reported in:

Li, H. H., Sprague, T. C., Yoo, A. H., Ma, W. J., & Curtis, C. E. (2025). Neural mechanisms of resource allocation in working memory. Science Advances.

If you use any of the code or data in this repository, include the above reference.

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I. Data

Behavioral Data

• Folders: data/behav_1item and data/behav_2item
• Description:
  Files in these folders contain trial-by-trial information on condition, target location, and behavioral reports.
• Filenames: Files are named by the subject ID (from S1 to S11)
• Variables for the 1-item Experiment:
  • wm_ang:
    • Location of the target (in degree polar angle)
  • behEst:
    • Behavioral reports (in polar angle)
• Variables for the 2-item Experiment:
  • targ_angs:
    • First column: Location of the target (in degree polar angle)
    • Second column: Location of the non-target (in degree polar angle)
  • conditions:
    • 1 = valid condition (precue matched the target)
    • 2 = invalid condition
  • behEst:
    • Behavioral reports (in polar angle)
  • sacRT:
    • Saccade reaction time (in second)
  • goodtrial:
    • Index for trials that passed exclusion criteria (1=good trials; 0=excluded trials)
  • sep_cue_angs:
    • Angle (degree) of the separator in the precue indicating how the aperture is divided
  • pri_cue_angs:
    • Angle (degree) of the precue indicating the prioritized item

fMRI Data

• Folders: data/trialData_1item and data/trialData_2item
• Description:
  Each .mat file contains voxel activity pattern (#trial X #voxel) for each subject, session, and ROI. Data from the 1-item experiment is only used for voxel selection.
• Filenames: Files are named as subjectID_sessionID_ROI_surf_trialData.mat
• Variables for the 1-item Experiment in data/trialData_1item:
  • TR: TR = 0.75 second
  • c_map:
    • Location of the target (in degree polar angle)
  • dt_mapz:
    • Voxel activity patterns (#trial X #voxel)
• Variables for the 2-item Experiment in data/trialData_2item:
  • TR: TR = 0.75 second
  • c_all:
    • First column: Location of the target (in degree polar angle)
    • Second column: Location of the non-target (in degree polar angle)
    • Third column: conditions (1 = valid condition; 2 = invalid condition)
  • dt_allz:
    • Voxel activity patterns (#trial X #voxel)

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II. Outputs of Analysis

• Folder: mdata/decoded

• Description:
  Contains decoding results for each subject and ROI. Each .mat file includes

• Filenames: Files are named as subjectID_sessionID_ROI_decoded_750vox.mat

• Variables:

  • est: Decoded locations
  • unc: Decoded uncertainty
    In both variables, the first column represents the target and the second column represents the distractor (non-target).
  • p: Hyperparameters used in decoding
  • vox_mask: index for selected voxels
  • nvox: number of voxels for decoding
  • sess_2item: sessions decoded

• Folder: mdata/VPmodel

• Description:
  Contains fitting results of a priority-dependent variable precision model to the behavioral data (used for Supplementary Fig.2).

• Variables:

  • berr_mean: mean absolute behavioral error (valude, invalid)
  • berr_std: Sdv of behavioral error (valude, invalid)
  • bestPar: best-fit parameters
  • nLLVec: negative log-likehood
  • parMat: parameters under different intial points

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III. Code

• Main Script:
  Run wmPriority_wrapper.m to decode two items for each trial from the voxel activity of a particular subject and ROI.

  wmPriority_genModelDecode_2item.m is called by the wrapper to read and sort the data for decoding with leave-one-run-out cross validation procedure.

• Decoding Algorithms:
  The algorithms and code for conducting Bayesian decoding of 2 items from neural (fMRI) activity are located in the folder Decode_2item.

• Summary:
  Run plot_summary.m to plot summary of the results shown in the paper. The summary results are saved in summary.mat

• Others: cat_struct.m, cpsFigure.m, plot_errorbar.m, plot_label.m are miscellaneous functions for plotting or sorting the data

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