Where do we store the memory representations that guide attention?

Abstract

During the last decade one of the most contentious and heavily studied topics in the attention literature has been the role that working memory representations play in controlling perceptual selection. The hypothesis has been advanced that to have attention select a certain perceptual input from the environment, we only need to represent that item in working memory. Here we summarize the work indicating that the relationship between what representations are maintained in working memory and what perceptual inputs are selected is not so simple. First, it appears that attentional selection is also determined by high-level task goals that mediate the relationship between working memory storage and attentional selection. Second, much of the recent work from our laboratory has focused on the role of long-term memory in controlling attentional selection. We review recent evidence supporting the proposal that working memory representations are critical during the initial configuration of attentional control settings, but that after those settings are established long-term memory representations play an important role in controlling which perceptual inputs are selected by mechanisms of attention.

Involuntary top-down control by search-irrelevant features: Visual working memory biases attention in an object-based manner

“…Surprisingly, mechanisms of visual search have mostly been investigated by means of experiments with constant search targets throughout a series of search trials (Treisman & Gelade, 1980;Wolfe, 1994Wolfe, , 2010Zelinsky, 2012). In this case, due to repetition of the same search target in each trial, a representation of relevant features of the target object can be recoded and retained in long-term memory (LTM, Woodman, Carlisle, & Reinhart, 2013). If the target changes from one search episode to the next, as is the case in most everyday tasks, time might not suffice to recode a representation of the search target into an LTM template.…”

“…If the target changes from one search episode to the next, as is the case in most everyday tasks, time might not suffice to recode a representation of the search target into an LTM template. Instead, a short-term memory (STM) also called working memory (WM) representation of the search target should be formed after target specification and maintained until the target is found (Woodman et al, 2013). This working memory representation of the search target is often called search template (e.g., Olivers, Peters, Houtkamp, & Roelfsema, 2011).…”

“…Second, there is evidence from human and non-human primate electrophysiology that STM and LTM representations of a search object differ. Woodman et al (2013) measured contralateral-delay activity (CDA) while humans performed visual searches. The CDA is a relative negativity at parietal, occipital, and temporal electrodes that is supposed to indicate maintenance of visual representations in WM (Vogel & Machizawa, 2004).…”

“…Furthermore, in a monkey study by Rossi et al (2001), constant target searches were not affected by prefrontal lesions, while changing target searches were impaired. Thus, WM templates for changing search targets and LTM templates for constant search targets are retained differently in the primate brain (Woodman et al, 2013).…”

Automatic capture of attention by conceptually generated working memory templates

“…is now believed that visual WM contents can modulate both search times and eye movements, under certain conditions (Hollingworth & Luck, 2009;Olivers, Meijer, & Theeuwes, 2006;Woodman, Luck, & Schall, 2007;Woodman et al, 2013).…”