We review our research on the episodic buffer in the multicomponent model of working memory (Baddeley, 2000), making explicit the influence of Anne Treisman's work on the way our research has developed. The crucial linking theme concerns binding, whereby the individual features of an episode are combined as integrated representations. We summarize a series of experiments on visual working memory that investigated the retention of feature bindings and individual features. The effects of cognitive load, perceptual distraction, prioritization, serial position, and their interactions form a coherent pattern. We interpret our findings as demonstrating contrasting roles of externally driven and internally driven attentional processes, as well as a distinction between visual buffer storage and the focus of attention. Our account has strong links with Treisman's concept of focused attention and aligns with a number of contemporary approaches to visual working memory. Keywords Attention. Working memory. Visual working memory Over 60 years have passed since Broadbent (1958) first presented a model linking short-term memory and attention. However, early investigation tended to concentrate on the auditory-verbal domain whereas in the visual domain, attention and short-term memory were typically studied separately. One development in bringing these perspectives together was the use of perceptually based change detection methods to investigate the capacity of visual working memory (Luck & Vogel, 1997). A parallel development was growing awareness of working memory among researchers studying attention in visual perception (e.g.