The Role of Amodal Object-based Attention in Retaining Bindings in Working Memory

Abstract

Over the past decade, it has been debated whether retaining bindings in working memory requires more attention than retaining constituent features, focusing on domain-general attention and space-based attention. In the current study we hypothesized that retaining bindings in working memory needs more amodal object-based attention than retaining single features. In a change detection task, we tested three typical bindings, which had been suggested requiring no more attention than the constituent features: The two constituent features of binding were stored in different working memory modules (cross-module binding, Experiment 1), from auditory and visual modalities (cross-modal binding, Experiment 2), or spatially separated (cross-space visual binding, Experiments 3 and 4). In the critical condition, we added a secondary object feature-report task during the delay interval of the change-detection task, such that the secondary task competed for object-based attention with the to-be-memorized stimuli. Moreover, the secondary task was presented in either visual (Experiments 1-3) or auditory (Experiment 4) modality. If more amodal object-based attention is required for retaining bindings than for retaining constituent features in working memory, the attention-demanding secondary task should impair the binding performance to a larger degree relative to the performance of constituent features. In congruent with this prediction, Experiments 1–4 consistently revealed a significantly larger impairment for bindings than for the constituent features, regardless of the modality of the secondary task. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2016