Selection in spatial working memory is independent of perceptual selective attention, but they interact in a shared spatial priority map

• Published in: Attention, perception & psychophysics Vol. 77; no. 8; pp. 2653 - 2668
• Main Authors: Hedge, Craig, Oberauer, Klaus, Leonards, Ute
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01-11-2015; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Attention; Attention - physiology; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Bias; Brain Mapping; Cognitive Psychology; Cues; Discrimination Learning; Evidence; Eye Movements; Female; Humans; Male; Memory; Memory, Short-Term - physiology; Photic Stimulation; Psychology; Psychomotor Performance - physiology; Reaction Time; Reaction Time - physiology; Repetition; Short Term Memory; Spatial Memory - physiology; Stimuli; Visual Perception - physiology; Visual task performance; Young Adult; Attention switching; Working memory; Focus of attention; Spatial attention; Attention
• ISSN: 1943-3921; 1943-393X
• DOI: 10.3758/s13414-015-0976-4

We examined the relationship between the attentional selection of perceptual information and of information in working memory (WM) through four experiments, using a spatial WM-updating task. Participants remembered the locations of two objects in a matrix and worked through a sequence of updating operations, each mentally shifting one dot to a new location according to an arrow cue. Repeatedly updating the same object in two successive steps is typically faster than switching to the other object; this object switch cost reflects the shifting of attention in WM. In Experiment
1
, the arrows were presented in random peripheral locations, drawing perceptual attention away from the selected object in WM. This manipulation did not eliminate the object switch cost, indicating that the mechanisms of perceptual selection do not underlie selection in WM. Experiments
2a
and
2b
corroborated the independence of selection observed in Experiment
1
, but showed a benefit to reaction times when the placement of the arrow cue was aligned with the locations of relevant objects in WM. Experiment
2c
showed that the same benefit also occurs when participants are not able to mark an updating location through eye fixations. Together, these data can be accounted for by a framework in which perceptual selection and selection in WM are separate mechanisms that interact through a shared spatial priority map.