Is the Contralateral Delay Activity (CDA) a robust neural correlate for Visual Working Memory (VWM) tasks? A reproducibility study

TL;DR

This study reproduces eight CDA-related VWM experiments using a standardized EEG pipeline, confirming CDA as a reliable neural marker, while highlighting areas needing further investigation and offering reproducibility guidelines.

Contribution

It demonstrates that a basic automated EEG pipeline can reliably reproduce CDA findings across multiple studies, supporting CDA's robustness as a VWM neural correlate.

Findings

Successfully reproduced all eight CDA studies

Identified trends and raised questions about CDA decay and recall phase

Provided reproducibility recommendations for EEG studies

Abstract

Visual working memory (VWM) allows us to actively store, update and manipulate visual information surrounding us. While the underlying neural mechanisms of VWM remain unclear, contralateral delay activity (CDA), a sustained negativity over the hemisphere contralateral to the positions of visual items to be remembered, is often used to study VWM. To investigate if the CDA is a robust neural correlate for VWM tasks, we reproduced eight CDA-related studies with a publicly accessible EEG dataset. We used the raw EEG data from these eight studies and analyzed all of them with the same basic pipeline to extract CDA. We were able to reproduce the results from all the studies and show that with a basic automated EEG pipeline we can extract a clear CDA signal. We share insights from the trends observed across the studies and raise some questions about the CDA decay and the CDA during the recall phase, which surprisingly, none of the eight studies did address. Finally, we also provide reproducibility recommendations based on our experience and challenges in reproducing these studies.