Working memory-driven attention towards a distractor does not interfere with target feature perception

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe contents of working memory (WM) can influence where we attend – but can it also interfere with what we see? Active maintenance of visual items in WM biases attention towards WM-matching objects, and also enhances early perceptual processing of WM-matching items (e.g., more accurate perceptual discrimination). Here, we asked whether a WM-matching distractor interferes with perceptual processing of a target's features. In a dual-task paradigm, participants maintained a shape in WM across an intervening visual search task, during which they had to reproduce the colour of a designated target item using a continuous-report technique. Importantly, the WM shape could match the target item, a distractor item, or no item in the search array. When the WM shape matched a distractor, we found no evidence of systematic perceptual interference (i.e., swapping or mixing with the distractor colour), but observed only general disruptions in target processing (i.e., decreased target accuracy). These results suggest that when visual attention is inadvertently drawn to a WM-matching distractor, any resultant automatic perceptual processing may be too transient or weak to significantly interfere with perceptual processing of the target's features.