Individual differences in working memory capacity predict visual attention allocation.
To the extent that individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) reflect differences in attention (Baddeley, 1993; Engle, Kane, & Tuholski, 1999), differences in WMC should predict performance on visual attention tasks. Individuals who scored in the upper and lower quartiles on the OSPAN working memory test performed a modification of Egly and Homa's (1984) selective attention task. In this task, the participants identified a central letter and localized a displaced letter flashed somewhere on one of three concentric rings. When the displaced letter occurred closer to fixation than the cue implied, high-WMC, but not low-WMC, individuals showed a cost in the letter localization task. This suggests that low-WMC participants allocated attention as a spotlight, whereas those with high WMC showed flexible allocation.
Department of Psychology, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas 79409-2051, USA. kate.bleckley@ttu.edu
M Kathryn
MK
Bleckley
Francis T
FT
Durso
Jerry M
JM
Crutchfield
Randall W
RW
Engle
Maya M
MM
Khanna
D001288:Attention; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D010153:Paired-Associate Learning; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011340:Problem Solving; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time; D012691:Serial Learning; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological