Do the contents of visual working memory automatically influence attentional selection during visual search?

Woodman, Geoffrey F.; Luck, Steven J.

doi:10.1037/0096-1523.33.2.363

Cited by 317 publications

(488 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…As we have just seen, the results found in all experiments are consistent with those theories claiming that WM contents interact with target detection in an attentional task (e.g. Desimone & Duncan, 1995;Duncan & Humphreys, 1989), although these results have recently been questioned in other visual attentional tasks (Woodman & Luck, 2007). Whereas in Experiments 3 and 4, it leads to an advantage (targets that were in WM were generally detected faster), in Experiment 2 that modulation generated interference because WM information competing in two different tasks (memory and RSVP attentional task).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Working memory effects in speeded RSVP tasks

Liaño

Potter

Rodríguez

2013

Psychological Research

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The present paper examines the effects of memory contents and memory load in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) speeded tasks, trying to explain previous inconsistent results. We used a one target (Experiment 1) and a two-target (Experiment 2) RSVP task with a concurrent memory load of one or four items, in a dual-task paradigm. A relation between material in working memory and the target in the RSVP impaired the identification of the target. In Experiments 3 and 4, the single task was to determine whether any information in memory matched the target in the RSVP, while varying the memory load. A match was detected faster than a non-match, although only when there was some distance between targets in the RSVP (Experiment 4). The results suggest that memory contents automatically capture attention, slowing processing when the memory contents are irrelevant to the task, and speeding processing when they are relevant.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Working memory effects in speeded RSVP tasks

Liaño

Potter

Rodríguez

2013

Psychological Research

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“…Our findings suggest that a conceptual representation of an object that is related to a future action is consolidated in such a way that it can bias attention even in situations when working memory is burdened with different instructions, tasks, and stimuli. This is related to an issue brought forward by, for instance, Woodman and Luck (2007) who suggest that working memory and task set are two different constructs that differentially affect attentional processing, and supports the notion that our manipulations go beyond those used in the context of working memory and attention.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

“…Furthermore, more than one item/feature needed to be remembered. In the light of previous research that has shown that an increased working memory load attenuates the attentional bias toward to-be-remembered items (e.g., Downing & Dodds, 2004;Woodman & Luck, 2007), our findings are thus not so surprising.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 65%

“…In visual search tasks, reactions are faster when targets are presented within a to-be-remembered stimulus (e.g., Dowd & Mitroff, 2013;Soto, Humphreys, & Heinke, 2006) and slower when the to-be-remembered stimulus is presented as a distractor (e.g., Soto & Humphreys, 2007;Soto, Humphreys, & Heinke, 2006) or as a singleton distractor (e.g., Olivers, Meijer, & Theeuwes, 2006, but for some critical notes, see Downing &Dodds, 2004 andWoodman &Luck, 2007). Similarly, when a to-be-remembered item is used as a cue in a visual probe tasks (e.g., Downing, 2000;Schwark, Dolgov, Sandry, & Volkman, 2013) reaction 4 times are faster when a target is presented at the same location of a to-be-remembered cue than when it is presented at the opposite location.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Attention to future actions: the influence of instructed S-R versus S-S mappings on attentional control

Tibboel

Liefooghe

Houwer

2015

Psychological Research

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Even though there is ample evidence that planning future actions plays a role in attentional processing (e.g., Downing, 2000;Soto et al., 2008), it is not clear to what extent planning in itself (rather than the prior experience of the planned actions) controls attention. We suggest that attention can be biased towards stimuli that are associated with instructions for tasks that will be performed in the future even if those tasks have not yet been experienced. We performed two experiments in which participants receive instructions in which some objects were associated with a response (i.e., instructed S-R objects; Experiment 1) or a stimulus property (i.e., instructed S-S objects; Experiment 2) whereas control objects were not. However, before participants were required to perform the S-R task (Experiment 1) or perform an S-S memory task (Experiment 2), they performed a visual probe task in which target objects and control objects served as irrelevant cues.Our results show that attention was biased towards the S-R objects (compared to control stimuli) but not to S-S objects. These findings suggest that future plans can bias attention toward specific stimuli, but only when these stimuli are associated with a specific action. We discuss these findings in light of research concerning automatic effects of instructions and theories that view attention as a selectionfor-action mechanism.

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“…Thus, targets and distractors are in a state of mutual inhibition until the system can resolve the point at which processing resources should be preferentially allocated. There is now much evidence showing that task set establishes a strong top-down bias influencing the outcome of this process (Chelazzi, Duncan, Miller, & Desimone, 1998;Downing, 2000;Han & Kim, 2009;Olivers, Meijer, & Theeuwes, 2006;Woodman & Luck, 2007). Thus, it may be that the top-down attentional set directed towards colour targets is sufficient to counteract any advantage that learnt biases might contribute towards competitive interactions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automaticity and cognitive control in the learned predictiveness effect.

Shone¹,

Harris²,

Livesey³

2015

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cogniti

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In novel contexts, learning is biased toward cues previously experienced as predictive compared with cues previously experienced as nonpredictive. This is known as learned predictiveness. A recent finding has shown that instructions issued about the causal status of cues influences the expression of learned predictiveness, suggesting that controlled, volitional processes play a role in this effect. Three experiments are reported further investigating the effects of instructional manipulations on learned predictiveness. Experiment 1 confirms the influence of inferential processes, extending previous work to suggest that instructions affect associative memory as well as causal reasoning. Experiments 2 and 3 used a procedure designed to tease apart inferential and automatic contributions to the bias by presenting instructed causes that were previously predictive and previously nonpredictive. The results demonstrate that the prior predictiveness of cues influences subsequent learning over and above the effect of explicit instruction. However, it appears that the relationship between explicit instruction and predictive history is interactive rather than additive. Potential explanations for this interactivity are discussed.

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Do the contents of visual working memory automatically influence attentional selection during visual search?

Cited by 317 publications

References 53 publications

Working memory effects in speeded RSVP tasks

Working memory effects in speeded RSVP tasks

Attention to future actions: the influence of instructed S-R versus S-S mappings on attentional control

Automaticity and cognitive control in the learned predictiveness effect.

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