Simultaneous attentional guidance by working-memory and selection history reveals two distinct sources of attention.
Recent theories of attention have proposed that selection history is a separate, dissociable source of information that influences attention. The current study sought to investigate the simultaneous involvement of selection history and working-memory on attention during visual search. Experiments 1 and 2 used target feature probability to manipulate selection history and found significant effects of both working-memory and selection history, although working-memory dominated selection history when they cued different locations. Experiment 3 eliminated the contribution of voluntary refreshing of working-memory and replicated the main effects, although selection history became dominant. Using the same methodology, but with reduced probability cue validity, both effects were present in Experiment 4 and did not significantly differ in their contribution to attention. Effects of selection history and working-memory never interacted. These results suggest that selection history and working-memory are separate influences on attention and have little impact on each other. Theoretical implications for models of attention are discussed.
Department of Psychology, New Mexico State University, United States. Electronic address: jschwark@nmsu.edu.
Jeremy D
JD
Schwark
Igor
I
Dolgov
Joshua
J
Sandry
C Brooks
CB
Volkman
D000293:Adolescent; D000465:Algorithms; D001288:Attention; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult
2323 Visual Perception; 2340 Cognitive Processes; 2346 Attention; Attention; Contextual cuing; Probability; Selection history; Visual search; Working memory