scholarly journals Feature-based attentional weighting and spreading in visual working memory

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcel Niklaus ◽  
Anna C. Nobre ◽  
Freek van Ede
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasper E. Hajonides ◽  
Freek van Ede ◽  
Mark G. Stokes ◽  
Anna C. Nobre

AbstractSelective attention can be directed not only to external sensory inputs, but also to internal sensory representations held within visual working memory (VWM). To date, this has been studied predominantly following retrospective cues directing attention to particular items, or their locations in memory. In addition to item-level attentional prioritisation, recent studies have shown that selectively attending to feature dimensions in VWM can also improve memory recall performance. However, no study to date has directly compared item-based and feature-based attention in VWM, nor their neural bases. Here, we compared the benefits of retrospective cues (retro-cues) that were directed either at a multi-feature item or at a feature-dimension that was shared between two spatially segregated items. Behavioural results revealed qualitatively similar attentional benefits in both recall accuracy and response time, but also showed that cueing benefits were larger following item cues. Concurrent EEG measurements further revealed a similar attenuation of posterior alpha oscillations following both item and feature retro-cues when compared to non-informative, neutral retro-cues. We argue that attention can act flexibly to prioritise the most relevant information – at either the item or the feature-level – to optimise ensuing memory-based task performance, and we discuss the implications of the observed commonalities and differences between item-level and feature-level prioritisation in VWM.


2013 ◽  
Vol 368 (1628) ◽  
pp. 20130061 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Hollingworth ◽  
Seongmin Hwang

We examined the conditions under which a feature value in visual working memory (VWM) recruits visual attention to matching stimuli. Previous work has suggested that VWM supports two qualitatively different states of representation: an active state that interacts with perceptual selection and a passive (or accessory) state that does not. An alternative hypothesis is that VWM supports a single form of representation, with the precision of feature memory controlling whether or not the representation interacts with perceptual selection. The results of three experiments supported the dual-state hypothesis. We established conditions under which participants retained a relatively precise representation of a parcticular colour. If the colour was immediately task relevant, it reliably recruited attention to matching stimuli. However, if the colour was not immediately task relevant, it failed to interact with perceptual selection. Feature maintenance in VWM is not necessarily equivalent with feature-based attentional selection.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (9) ◽  
pp. e23873 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jifan Zhou ◽  
Jun Yin ◽  
Tong Chen ◽  
Xiaowei Ding ◽  
Zaifeng Gao ◽  
...  

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