title: A bilateral advantage for maintaining objects in visual short term memory.
abstract: Research has shown that attentional pre-cues can subsequently influence the transfer of information into visual short term memory (VSTM) (Schmidt, B., Vogel, E., Woodman, G., & Luck, S. (2002). Voluntary and automatic attentional control of visual working memory. Perception & Psychophysics, 64(5), 754-763). However, studies also suggest that those effects are constrained by the hemifield alignment of the pre-cues (Holt, J. L., & Delvenne, J.-F. (2014). A bilateral advantage in controlling access to visual short-term memory. Experimental Psychology, 61(2), 127-133), revealing better recall when distributed across hemifields relative to within a single hemifield (otherwise known as a bilateral field advantage). By manipulating the duration of the retention interval in a colour change detection task (1s, 3s), we investigated whether selective pre-cues can also influence how information is later maintained in VSTM. The results revealed that the pre-cues influenced the maintenance of the colours in VSTM, promoting consistent performance across retention intervals (Experiments 1 & 4). However, those effects were only shown when the pre-cues were directed to stimuli displayed across hemifields relative to stimuli within a single hemifield. Importantly, the results were not replicated when participants were required to memorise colours (Experiment 2) or locations (Experiment 3) in the absence of spatial pre-cues. Those findings strongly suggest that attentional pre-cues have a strong influence on both the transfer of information in VSTM and its subsequent maintenance, allowing bilateral items to better survive decay.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
authors.forename: Jessica L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Holt
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. Electronic address: j.f.delvenne@leeds.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Jean-François
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Delvenne
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D011939:Mental Recall; D011589:Psychology, Experimental; D011601:Psychophysics; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D014796:Visual Perception
keywords: Attention; Bilateral field advantage; Visual short-term memory; Visual working memory