The role of working memory in attentional capture.
Nilli Lavie,Jan W. de Fockert +1 more
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
It is shown that attentional capture by an irrelevant color singleton during shape search critically depends on availability of working memory to the search task: When working memory is loaded in a concurrent yet unrelated verbal short-term memory task, capture increases.Abstract:
Much previous research has demonstrated that visual search is typically disrupted by the presence of a unique "singleton" distractor in the search display. Here we show that attentional capture by an irrelevant color singleton during shape search critically depends on availability of working memory to the search task: When working memory is loaded in a concurrent yet unrelated verbal short-term memory task, capture increases. These findings converge with previous demonstrations that increasing working memory load results in greater distractor interference in Stroop-like tasks (de Fockert, Rees, Frith, & Lavie, 2001; Lavie, Hirst, de Fockert, & Viding, 2004), which support the hypothesis that working memory provides goal-directed control of visual selective attention allowing to minimize interference by goal-irrelevant distractors.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Distracted and confused?: Selective attention under load
TL;DR: These findings provide a resolution to the long-standing early and late selection debate within a load theory of attention that accommodates behavioural and neuroimaging data within a framework that integrates attention research with executive function.
Journal ArticleDOI
Load Theory of Selective Attention and Cognitive Control
TL;DR: In this article, a load theory of attention in which distractor rejection depends on the level and type of load involved in current processing was tested, and it was shown that whereas high perceptual load reduces distractor interference, working memory load or dual-task coordination load increases distractor interferences.
Journal ArticleDOI
Top–down and bottom–up control of visual selection
TL;DR: It is concluded that top-down knowledge regarding non-spatial features of the objects cannot alter the initial selection priority, and only by adjusting the size of the attentional window, the initial sweep of information through the brain may be altered in a top- down way.
Journal ArticleDOI
The multi-component model of working memory: explorations in experimental cognitive psychology.
Grega Repovs,Alan D. Baddeley +1 more
TL;DR: The current revision of the multi-component model that encompasses a central executive, two unimodal storage systems: a phonological loop and a visuospatial sketchpad, and a further component, a multimodal store capable of integrating information into unitary episodic representations, termed episodic buffer is presented.
Journal ArticleDOI
Attention, Distraction, and Cognitive Control Under Load
TL;DR: The extent to which people can focus attention in the face of irrelevant distractions has been shown to critically depend on the level and type of information load involved in their current task as discussed by the authors.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Neural Mechanisms of Selective Visual Attention
Robert Desimone,John S. Duncan +1 more
TL;DR: The two basic phenomena that define the problem of visual attention can be illustrated in a simple example and selectivity-the ability to filter out un wanted information is illustrated.
Journal ArticleDOI
Visual search and stimulus similarity.
John S. Duncan,Glyn W. Humphreys +1 more
TL;DR: A new theory of search and visual attention is presented, which accounts for harmful effects of nontargets resembling any possible target, the importance of local nontarget grouping, and many other findings.
Journal ArticleDOI
Exploring the Central Executive
TL;DR: The central executive component of working memory is a poorly specified and very powerful system that could be criticized as little more than a homunculus as discussed by the authors and a research strategy is outlined that attempts to specify and analyse its component functions and is illustrated with four lines of research.
Journal ArticleDOI
Working-memory capacity and the control of attention: the contributions of goal neglect, response competition, and task set to Stroop interference.
Michael J. Kane,Randall W. Engle +1 more
TL;DR: The data and a literature review suggest that Stroop interference is jointly determined by 2 mechanisms, goal maintenance and competition resolution, and that the dominance of each depends on WM capacity, as well as the task set induced by current and previous contexts.
Journal ArticleDOI
Perceptual selectivity for color and form.
TL;DR: Three visual-search experiments tested whether the preattentive parallel stage can-selectively guide the attentive stage to a particular known-to-be-relevant target feature and revealed that selectivity depends on the relative discriminability of the stimulus dimensions.