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The Attentional Set Shifting Task: A Measure of Cognitive Flexibility in Mice
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On the difference between working memory and attentional set.

Christian N L Olivers1, Martin Eimer

  • 1Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Cognitive Psychology, Van der Boechorststr. 1, 1081 BT Amsterdam, Netherlands. cnl.olivers@psy.vu.nl

Neuropsychologia
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Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Maintaining items in visual working memory (VWM) attracts attention to matching distractors. Uncertainty about task order amplifies this effect, suggesting active attention involves more than passive memory storage.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Visual Perception
  • Attention Studies

Background:

  • Distractors matching items in visual working memory (VWM) capture attention during visual search.
  • This suggests that maintaining an item in VWM is akin to setting an attentional priority for it.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether the relationship between VWM and attention is bidirectional.
  • To test if actively attending to a memorized item enhances distractor interference compared to passive memory storage.

Main Methods:

  • Participants performed both a memory task and a visual search task.
  • Task order was unpredictably varied, creating uncertainty about whether to prioritize memory recall or visual search.
  • Memory-related distractor effects were measured in the visual search task.

Main Results:

  • Distractor interference effects were significantly larger when participants were uncertain about the upcoming task order.
  • This indicates that the cognitive processes engaged when actively attending to a memorized item are distinct from those for passive storage.

Conclusions:

  • Active attentional engagement with VWM content amplifies interference from matching distractors.
  • These findings support the conjecture that maintaining information in VWM is functionally similar to adopting an attentional set, with added processes for active attention.