Retrospective Selection in Visual and Tactile Working Memory Is Mediated by Shared Control Mechanisms

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Psychology

Background:

• Selective attention modulates working memory (WM) activation.
• Retro-cues, presented post-stimulus, redirect attention to relevant WM items.
• The modality-specificity of attention shift control in WM remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether attention shift control in WM is modality-specific or shared across sensory modalities.
• To examine the interaction between visual and tactile WM when attention shifts are spatially congruent or incongruent.
• To determine if shared supramodal control processes mediate concurrent attentional selection in different sensory WM.

Main Methods:

• Participants memorized bilateral visual and tactile stimuli.
• Auditory retro-cues indicated which stimuli to retain, requiring same- or opposite-side attention shifts.
• Tactile and visual contralateral delay activities (tCDA and CDA) were measured to track attentional selection.

Main Results:

• Tactile WM performance was impaired, and tCDA attenuated on opposite-side vs. same-side trials, indicating visual attention shifts affected tactile WM.
• These spatial congruency effects disappeared when tactile WM shifts occurred without concurrent visual WM shifts.
• Evidence suggests spatial synergy effects between visual and tactile WM attention shifts.

Conclusions:

• Concurrent attentional selection in tactile and visual WM relies on shared supramodal control processes.
• This contrasts with other modality-specific aspects of WM control.
• The findings highlight a shared mechanism for directing attention across sensory modalities within working memory.