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Abstract
Recently, working memory (WM) has been conceptualized as a limited resource, distributed flexibly and strategically between an unlimited number of representations. In addition to improving the precision of representations in WM, the allocation of resources may also shape how these representations act as attentional templates to guide visual search. Here, we reviewed recent evidence in favor of this assumption and proposed three main principles that govern the relationship between WM resources and template-guided visual search. First, the allocation of resources to an attentional template has an effect on visual search, as it may improve the guidance of visual attention, facilitate target recognition, and/or protect the attentional template against interference. Second, the allocation of the largest amount of resources to a representation in WM is not sufficient to give this representation the status of attentional template and thus, the ability to guide visual search. Third, the representation obtaining the status of attentional template, whether at encoding or during maintenance, receives an amount of WM resources proportional to its relevance for visual search. Thus defined, the resource hypothesis of visual search constitutes a parsimonious and powerful framework, which provides new perspectives on previous debates and complements existing models of template-guided visual search.
Highlights
We spend a large part of our daily lives searching for known objects in dense visual scenes, such as car keys on a cluttered desk or a child’s jacket in a crowded playground
As attentional templates are thought to be represented in working memory (WM), we reviewed empirical evidence that the allocation of WM resources has consequences on memory, and on visual search
We have argued that three main principles govern the relationships between WM resources and template-guided visual search
Summary
We spend a large part of our daily lives searching for known objects in dense visual scenes, such as car keys on a cluttered desk or a child’s jacket in a crowded playground. Internal attention may optimize the limited storage space in WM by prioritizing behaviorally relevant over irrelevant information Serving this function, internal attention is thought to act both as a “filter” that determines what information gains access to WM (Awh & Vogel, 2008) and as a “resource” that is flexibly allocated amongst stored representations based on their respective relevance (Franconeri et al, 2013; Ma et al, 2014). The attentional filter selects appropriate information for encoding in WM (Gazzaley, 2011; Murray et al, 2011; Schmidt et al, 2002) and prevents distracting information from gaining access to it (Awh & Vogel, 2008; Cowan & Morey, 2006; Cusack et al, 2009; Gazzaley, 2011; McNab & Klingberg, 2008; Vissers et al, 2016; Vogel et al, 2005; Zanto & Gazzaley, 2009) In this view, individual differences in WM capacity are determined by the efficiency of the attentional filter, rather than by differences in the storage space per se. The precision of recall is assumed to directly reflect the allocation of WM resources between stored representations
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