What's on your mind: The influence of the contents of working memory on choice

Abstract

Information maintained in working memory (WM) has the potential to bias selective attention and limit executive attention. The current study assessed the influence of information in WM on the tasks one chooses to perform in a multitasking environment. Participants held either identities or locations in WM while performing voluntary task-switching trials on stimuli that did or did not match the information they were attempting to maintain. A bias toward performing the task associated with stimuli that had recently been encoded into WM was found. The results suggest that information in WM can influence choice within a multitasking environment.