Automatic capture of attention by conceptually generated working memory templates

Sun, Sol Z.; Shen, Jenny; Shaw, Mark R; Cant, Jonathan S.; Ferber, Susanne

doi:10.3758/s13414-015-0918-1

Cited by 16 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 38 publications

(42 reference statements)

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“…People are slower to respond on a visual search task when an item matching an item held in working memory is presented as a distractor (attentional capture). A broad range of mental states and processes can bias our attention, including visual working memory, verbal working memory, long‐term memory, associative knowledge, implicit memory, and reward . Studies have found converging evidence for attentional capture when the working memory load is held to a single item (although see Refs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioral decoding of working memory items inside and outside the focus of attention

Mallett

Lewis-Peacock

2018

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

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How we attend to our thoughts affects how we attend to our environment. Holding information in working memory can automatically bias visual attention toward matching information. By observing attentional biases on reaction times to visual search during a memory delay, it is possible to reconstruct the source of that bias using machine learning techniques and thereby behaviorally decode the content of working memory. Can this be done when more than one item is held in working memory? There is some evidence that multiple items can simultaneously bias attention, but the effects have been inconsistent. One explanation may be that items are stored in different states depending on the current task demands. Recent models propose functionally distinct states of representation for items inside versus outside the focus of attention. Here, we use behavioral decoding to evaluate whether multiple memory items-including temporarily irrelevant items outside the focus of attention-exert biases on visual attention. Only the single item in the focus of attention was decodable. The other item showed a brief attentional bias that dissipated until it returned to the focus of attention. These results support the idea of dynamic, flexible states of working memory across time and priority.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioral decoding of working memory items inside and outside the focus of attention

Mallett

Lewis-Peacock

2018

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

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“…As this latter finding suggests, then, VWM can be used deliberately to prioritize the averaging of prespecified items through memory-driven selection. What is particularly interesting about this finding, though, is that this form of attentional guidance can also occur incidentally as simply maintaining a feature value in VWM can bias attention toward perceptually similar information in the visual field (e.g., Carlisle & Woodman, 2011;Hollingworth et al, 2013;Kumar et al, 2009;Olivers et al, 2006;Soto et al, 2005;Sun et al, 2015). This begs the question, then, does memory-driven selection automatically alter the contribution of individual items to perceptual averages even when it is costly to do so (i.e., when all items are equally relevant to one's task)?…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Tuning the ensemble: Incidental skewing of the perceptual average through memory-driven selection.

Williams

Pratt

Ferber

et al. 2021

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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The process by which multiple items within an object grouping are rapidly summarized along a given visual dimension into a single mean value (i.e., perceptual averaging) has increasingly been shown to interact dynamically with visual working memory (VWM). Commonly, this interaction is studied with respect to the influence of perceptual averaging over VWM, but it is also the case that VWM can support perceptual averaging. Here, we argue that, in the presence of memory-matching elements, VWM exerts an obligatory influence over perceptual averaging even when it is detrimental to do so. Over four experiments, we tested our hypothesis by having individuals perform a mean orientation estimation task while concurrently maintaining a colored object in VWM. We anticipated that mean orientation reports would be attracted to the local mean of memory-matching items if such items are prioritized in perceptual average judgments. This was indeed the case as we observed a persistent bias in mean orientation judgments toward the subset mean of items matching the VWM item color, despite color being entirely irrelevant to the mean orientation task. Our results thus highlight a goal-invariant influence of VWM over perceptual averaging, which we attribute to amplification through memory-driven selection. Public Significance StatementCurrent understanding of the interaction between perceptual averaging and visual working memory (VWM) has largely centered on the influence of the former over the latter, with much less consideration of a potential bidirectional relationship between these two systems. In this study, we show that not only does VWM alter perceptual averaging judgments but that it also does so automatically (i.e., even when it is costly to do so). More broadly, this work provides confirmatory support to the idea that the amplification of items within object ensembles is set by an underlying priority map, which guides selective attention on the basis of physical salience, top-down goals, emotional valence, and reward history.

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“…Sixty native Chinese students from Zhejiang University, randomly divided into three groups, completed Experiment 1 for either a course credit or 15 RMB. Sample size (20) was estimated based on a medium effect size (η 2 = .40) from previous studies using a similar paradigm (e.g., Olivers, 2009;Sun et al, 2015), and maintained constant across experiments. All participants provided informed consent, and all procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board at Zhejiang University.…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The object as the unit of interaction between visual working memory and visual attention

Chen¹,

Zheng²,

Meng-jiao³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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This study aimed to determine the unit of interaction between visual working memory (VWM) and attention. Therefore, we examined two opposing hypotheses: (a) the unit of interaction is a Boolean map, which is a data format that can contain only one within-dimension feature (e.g., “red” or “circle”; Boolean-map-unit hypothesis); and (b) the unit of interaction is an object (object-unit hypothesis). In two experiments, participants held in their VWM two colors from either one or two objects, or one color, and then performed a search task that sometimes contained a distractor with a memory-matching color. The results showed that the attentional capture by two different colors encoded from one integrated object was equivalent to that of a single color, and was much stronger than that of two colors from separate objects, which supports the object-unit hypothesis. These findings have crucial implications for understanding the architecture of interaction between VWM and attention.

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Automatic capture of attention by conceptually generated working memory templates

Cited by 16 publications

References 38 publications

Behavioral decoding of working memory items inside and outside the focus of attention

Behavioral decoding of working memory items inside and outside the focus of attention

Tuning the ensemble: Incidental skewing of the perceptual average through memory-driven selection.

The object as the unit of interaction between visual working memory and visual attention

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