Abstract
Stimuli that resemble the content of visual working memory (VWM) capture attention. However, theories disagree on how many VWM items can bias attention simultaneously. According to some theories, there is a distinction between active and passive states in VWM, such that only items held in an active state can bias attention. The single-item-template hypothesis holds that only one item can be in an active state and thus can bias attention. In contrast, the multiple-item-template hypothesis posits that multiple VWM items can be in an activate state simultaneously, and thus can bias attention. Recently, Van Moorselaar, Theeuwes, and Olivers (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 40(4):1450, 2014) and Hollingworth and Beck (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 42(7):911–917, 2016) tested these accounts, but obtained seemingly contradictory results. Van Moorselaar et al. (2014) found that a distractor in a visual-search task captured attention more when it matched the content of VWM (memory-driven capture). Crucially, memory-driven capture disappeared when more than one item was held in VWM, in line with the single-item-template hypothesis. In contrast, Hollingworth and Beck (2016) found memory-driven capture even when multiple items were kept in VWM, in line with the multiple-item-template hypothesis. Considering these mixed results, we replicated both studies with a larger sample, and found that all key results are reliable. It is unclear to what extent these divergent results are due to paradigm differences between the studies. We conclude that is crucial to our understanding of VWM to determine the boundary conditions under which memory-driven capture occurs.
Highlights
Stimuli that resemble the content of visual working memory (VWM) capture attention
There are two distinct states within VWM: an active state, in which an item takes the role of attentional template and biases attention toward task-relevant input; and a passive state, in which items are stored in VWM but do not interact with visual sensory input
In a later study (Van Moorselaar, Theeuwes, & Olivers, 2014), an additional assumption was added to the SIT hypothesis: When multiple items are held in VWM, competition between the items would arise, preventing any item from reaching the state of attentional template, eliminating the effect of memory-driven attentional capture
Summary
Stimuli that resemble the content of visual working memory (VWM) capture attention. theories disagree on how many VWM items can bias attention simultaneously. The additional effect of memory-driven capture disappeared at higher memory loads, such that it became comparable to the regular capture effect of a colored distractor that is unrelated to VWM This finding is unexpected, even under the SIT hypothesis: If participants maintain two items in VWM, but only one of these serves as an attentional template, there’s still a 50% chance of the template item being a match to the colored distractor. On average, this should result in a reduced, but nonzero, memory-driven capture effect. To explain their results, Van Moorselaar et al (2014) suggested, as an additional assumption to the SIT hypothesis, that multiple VWM items competed with each other, and that as a result none of the items became an attentional template
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