Saccadic selection of stabilized items in visuospatial working memory

Saccadic eye movements prioritize the memory of visual stimuli that had previously been seen at the saccade target. In two experiments, we assessed whether this influence is limited to fragile memory traces or if saccades can also affect consolidated representations in visuospatial working memory (VSWM). To interfere with fragile memory traces, we presented visual masks at different delays following the offset of a memory array and simultaneously prompted participants to generate a saccade to one location. Masking was very effective: Memory performance was lowest right after the disappearance of the memory array and gradually increased for later mask onsets. In spite of that, memory was best for stimuli congruent with the saccade target. This advantage was largest at shortest delays and then decreased over the course of a second. Insofar as only consolidated representations survive interference from masks, we conclude that saccades exert spatially selective biases on stable representations in VSWM.