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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 11, 2026

Assessing Working Memory in Children: The Comprehensive Assessment Battery for Children – Working Memory (CABC-WM)

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Published on: June 12, 2017

Concurrent working memory load can facilitate selective attention: evidence for specialized load.

Soojin Park¹, Min-Shik Kim, Marvin M Chun

¹Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Have, CT 06520, USA. soojin.park@yale.edu

Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance

|October 11, 2007

Summary

Concurrent working memory load impacts selective attention. The study shows that the type of load determines whether attention is impaired or enhanced, depending on its overlap with targets or distractors.

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Last Updated: Jul 11, 2026

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Published on: June 12, 2017

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience
Attention Studies

Background:

Load theory posits that working memory load hinders selective attention and amplifies distractor interference.
Prior research indicates a general negative impact of concurrent cognitive tasks on attentional control.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how the nature of working memory load influences selective attention and distractor interference.
To test whether the processing overlap between working memory tasks and selective attention tasks modulates attentional outcomes.

Main Methods:

Participants performed a same/different matching task, identifying targets while ignoring distractors.
Concurrent working memory tasks were introduced, varying in their processing demands and overlap with task components.
Distractor interference was measured to assess the impact of working memory load on selective attention.

Main Results:

When working memory load shared mechanisms with task targets, distractor interference significantly increased.
Conversely, when working memory load overlapped with task distractors, interference decreased, improving target selection.
These findings demonstrate dissociable effects of working memory load based on processing overlap.

Conclusions:

The type of concurrent working memory load critically determines its effect on selective attention.
A specialized load account is proposed, highlighting that load can either impair or facilitate selective processing.
Understanding processing overlap is key to predicting working memory's impact on attention.