Focused, unfocused, and defocused information in working memory.

Rerko, Laura; Oberauer, Klaus

doi:10.1037/a0031172

Cited by 140 publications

(234 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…Finally, recent results show that repeated retro-cueing during the retention interval resulted in better memory performance for the repeatedly cued item as compared to single cues, suggesting that spatial retro-cues can strengthen memory representations (Rerko & Oberauer, 2013). Here, we observed a similar result: a valid retro-cues further added to the effect of the pre-cue.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

“…Whereas spatial retro-cues are known to strongly affect the content of visual memory (Astle et al, 2012;Griffin & Nobre, 2003;Landman et al, 2003;Makovski, Sussman, & Jiang, 2008;Murray, Nobre, Clark, Cravo, & Stokes, 2013;Rerko & Oberauer, 2013;Rerko, Souza, & Oberauer, 2014;Sligte et al, 2008), few studies have addressed the role of FBA during VSTM maintenance. In these studies, colored retrocues identified one of several colored objects held in memory and participants reproduced their orientation (Heuer & Schubö, 2016;Li & Saiki, 2015;Pertzov et al, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Setting and changing feature priorities in visual short-term memory

et al. 2016

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Many everyday tasks require prioritizing some visual features over competing ones, both during the selection from the rich sensory input and while maintaining information in visual short-term memory (VSTM). Here, we show that observers can change priorities in VSTM when, initially, they attended to a different feature. Observers reported from memory the orientation of one of two spatially interspersed groups of black and white gratings. Using colored pre-cues (presented before stimulus onset) and retro-cues (presented after stimulus offset) predicting the to-be-reported group, we manipulated observers' feature priorities independently during stimulus encoding and maintenance, respectively. Valid pre-cues reliably increased observers' performance (reduced guessing, increased report precision) as compared to neutral ones; invalid pre-cues had the opposite effect. Valid retro-cues also consistently improved performance (by reducing random guesses), even if the unexpected group suddenly became relevant (invalid-valid condition). Thus, feature-based attention can reshape priorities in VSTM protecting information that would otherwise be forgotten.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Setting and changing feature priorities in visual short-term memory

et al. 2016

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“…These findings converge with other studies that have observed that one item can be retained in a privileged state (of heightened accessibility) even when other items are cued between the initial cueing and testing (Rerko & Oberauer, 2013;Souza, Rerko, & Oberauer, 2015) or are subsequently encoded into WM (Gorgoraptis, Catalao, Bays, & Husain, 2011;. In sum, focused attention can be used to prioritize one WM item in a manner that is robust against distractions from the external or internal focus of attention.…”

Section: Resistance To Distractionsupporting

confidence: 72%

“…When a second retro-cue follows the first, and the last-cued item is the one relevant to the test, a retro-cue benefit is observed for the second-cued item (Landman et al, 2003;Li & Saiki, 2014;Maxcey, Fukuda, Song, & Woodman, 2015;Rerko & Oberauer, 2013). When all of the sequentially cued items are relevant, improvements have been reported for all cued items (Li & Saiki, 2014;, and this improvement is larger, the more frequently the same item is cued during the retention interval .…”

Section: Splitting Attention Between Multiple Wm Itemsmentioning

confidence: 68%

“…When tested directly, the information maintained in activity-silent form might be less accessible than information maintained through persistent neural activity, resulting in an invalid-cue cost. Yet, activitysilent information can apparently be partially (van Moorselaar, or fully (Landman et al, 2003;Rerko & Oberauer, 2013) recovered when the initially noncued items are cued by a second retro-cue before being tested.…”

Section: H3 Removalmentioning

confidence: 99%

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In search of the focus of attention in working memory: 13 years of the retro-cue effect

Souza

Oberauer

2016

Atten Percept Psychophys

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361

337

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The concept of attention has a prominent place in cognitive psychology. Attention can be directed not only to perceptual information, but also to information in working memory (WM). Evidence for an internal focus of attention has come from the retro-cue effect: Performance in tests of visual WM is improved when attention is guided to the testrelevant contents of WM ahead of testing them. The retro-cue paradigm has served as a test bed to empirically investigate the functions and limits of the focus of attention in WM. In this article, we review the growing body of (behavioral) studies on the retro-cue effect. We evaluate the degrees of experimental support for six hypotheses about what causes the retro-cue effect: (1) Attention protects representations from decay, (2) attention prioritizes the selected WM contents for comparison with a probe display, (3) attended representations are strengthened in WM, (4) not-attended representations are removed from WM, (5) a retro-cue to the retrieval target provides a head start for its retrieval before decision making, and (6) attention protects the selected representation from perceptual interference. The extant evidence provides support for the last four of these hypotheses.

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Gamma oscillations modulate working memory recall precision

et al. 2021

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Working memory (WM)—the ability to keep information in mind for short periods of time—is linked to attention and inhibitory abilities, i.e., the capacity to ignore task-irrelevant information. These abilities have been associated with brain oscillations, especially parietal gamma and alpha bands, but it is yet unknown whether these oscillations also modulate attention and inhibitory abilities. To test this, we compared parietal gamma-transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) to alpha-tACS and to a non-stimulation condition (Sham) in 51 young participants. Stimulation was coupled with a WM task probing memory-based attention and inhibitory abilities by means of probabilistic retrospective cues, including informative (valid), uninformative (invalid) and neutral. Our results show that relative to alpha and sham stimulation, parietal gamma-tACS significantly increased working memory recall precision. Additional post hoc analyses also revealed strong individual variability before and following stimulation; low-baseline performers showed no significant changes in performance following both gamma and alpha-tACS relative to sham. In contrast, in high-baseline performers gamma- (but not alpha) tACS selectively and significantly improved misbinding-feature errors as well as memory precision, particularly in uninformative (invalid) cues which rely more strongly on attentional abilities. We concluded that parietal gamma oscillations, therefore, modulate working memory recall processes, although baseline performance may further influence the effect of stimulation.

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Focused, unfocused, and defocused information in working memory.

Cited by 140 publications

References 76 publications

Setting and changing feature priorities in visual short-term memory

Setting and changing feature priorities in visual short-term memory

In search of the focus of attention in working memory: 13 years of the retro-cue effect

Gamma oscillations modulate working memory recall precision

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