Abstract
Attention and working memory are intricately related, yet there remain ambiguities in how to best characterize this relationship. In his review, Oberauer formalizes several dimensions for the relationship between attention and working memory, focusing especially on the supporting role of attention during working memory maintenance. In this commentary, we highlight how attention and working memory relate on a broader time scale via trial-to-trial fluctuations. Specifically, we briefly describe evidence and implications of these fluctuations of attention and working memory. A strong link has been shown behaviorally (e.g., interleaved sustained attention and working memory tasks) and neurally (e.g., pre-trial predictors of working memory success), yet fluctuations of attention and working memory are also distinct. Thus, we argue that attention and working memory fluctuate synchronously but not synonymously.
Highlights
Attention and working memory are fundamentally linked
We propose that fluctuations of sustained attention represent a unique component of the relationship between attention and working memory and have profound consequences for what we remember
Ample evidence suggests that both working memory and attention performance fluctuate over time, and some evidence suggests that fluctuations of working memory performance may be driven by fluctuations of attentional state
Summary
Attention and working memory are fundamentally linked. Just as we can attend only a subset of perceptual information from the environment, we can actively maintain only a subset of this information in mind. These aggregate measures are extremely important for understanding the overall relationship between attention and working memory, they disregard information about moment-by-moment fluctuations. We briefly describe evidence that both attention and working memory fluctuate over time. These behavioral lapses are thought to be the consequence of exceptionally poor attentional states along a continuum.
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