Method matters: Systematic effects of testing procedure on visual working memory sensitivity.

Makovski, Tal; Watson, Leah M.; Koutstaal, Wilma; Jiang, Yuhong

doi:10.1037/a0020851

Cited by 45 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 60 publications

(187 reference statements)

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“…Instead, it suggests that representations held in VSTM are in constant flux and can be either stabilized by attention or interfered with by new visual input and increased cognitive load (Makovski, Watson, Koutstaal, & Jiang, 2010). Whether such interference causes gradual degradation of resolution or completely terminates items from memory (Zhang & Luck, 2009) is an important question for future research.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are multiple visual short-term memory storages necessary to explain the retro-cue effect?

Makovski

2012

Psychon Bull Rev

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Recent research has shown that change detection performance is enhanced when, during the retention interval, attention is cued to the location of the upcoming test item. This retro-cue advantage has led some researchers to suggest that visual short-term memory (VSTM) is divided into a durable, limited-capacity storage and a more fragile, high-capacity storage. Consequently, performance is poor on the no-cue trials because fragile VSTM is overwritten by the test display and only durable VSTM is accessible under these conditions. In contrast, performance is improved in the retro-cue condition because attention keeps fragile VSTM accessible. The aim of the present study was to test the assumptions underlying this two-storage account. Participants were asked to encode an array of colors for a change detection task involving no-cue and retro-cue trials. A retro-cue advantage was found even when the cue was presented after a visual (Experiment 1) or a central (Experiment 2) interference. Furthermore, the magnitude of the interference was comparable between the no-cue and retro-cue trials. These data undermine the main empirical support for the two-storage account and suggest that the presence of a retro-cue benefit cannot be used to differentiate between different VSTM storages.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are multiple visual short-term memory storages necessary to explain the retro-cue effect?

Makovski

2012

Psychon Bull Rev

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“…Specifically, relative to change detection, visual arrays accuracy is diminished when the test requires 2-alternativeforced-choice recognition (i.e., which of two colors was in this location; Makovski et al, 2010). This indicates that active maintenance is less stable than suggested by the classic interpretation of k: The maintained representation of the target array is not robust to interference from the probe, and new input at test leads to greater interference.…”

Section: Visual Arrays Focal Attention and Attention Controlmentioning

confidence: 97%

Working memory capacity and the scope and control of attention

Shipstead

Harrison

Engle

2015

Atten Percept Psychophys

116

111

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Complex span and visual arrays are two common measures of working memory capacity that are respectively treated as measures of attention control and storage capacity. A recent analysis of these tasks concluded that (1) complex span performance has a relatively stronger relationship to fluid intelligence and (2) this is due to the requirement that people engage control processes while performing this task. The present study examines the validity of these conclusions by examining two large data sets that include a more diverse set of visual arrays tasks and several measures of attention control. We conclude that complex span and visual arrays account for similar amounts of variance in fluid intelligence. The disparity relative to the earlier analysis is attributed to the present study involving a more complete measure of the latent ability underlying the performance of visual arrays. Moreover, we find that both types of working memory task have strong relationships to attention control. This indicates that the ability to engage attention in a controlled manner is a critical aspect of working memory capacity, regardless of the type of task that is used to measure this construct.

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“…Retro-cues can serve to protect memory from this deleterious effect. Evidence in this direction has been provided by Makovski, Watson, Koutstaal, and Jiang (2010). These authors compared performance in a localrecognition task (single-probe display) with performance in a two-alternative forced choice task (two-probe display) with and without a retro-cue.…”

Section: H6 Protection From Perceptual Interferencementioning

confidence: 99%

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

Souza

Oberauer

2016

Atten Percept Psychophys

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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Method matters: Systematic effects of testing procedure on visual working memory sensitivity.

Cited by 45 publications

References 60 publications

Are multiple visual short-term memory storages necessary to explain the retro-cue effect?

Are multiple visual short-term memory storages necessary to explain the retro-cue effect?

Working memory capacity and the scope and control of attention

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

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