The power of one: A single flanker produces compatibility effects in the episodic flanker task

The episodic flanker task is an episodic version of the Eriksen and Eriksen (Perception & Psychophysics, 16 (1), 143-149, 1974) perceptual flanker task, showing the same compatibility and distance effects. Subjects are presented with a list followed by a probe display in which one item is cued. The task, to indicate whether the probed letter appeared in the same position in the memory list, requires focusing attention on a single item in memory. The probe display contains flanking items to be ignored. They are same as the memory list or different. Same flankers are compatible with "yes" responses and incompatible with "no" responses. Different flankers are incompatible with "yes" responses and compatible with "no" responses. Previously, we presented multiple flankers in the probe, allowing a global matching strategy. Here, we report two episodic flanker experiments with just one flanker in the probe to encourage focusing sharply on the target. We found flanker compatibility effects in both experiments when a single flanker appeared immediately adjacent to the target. Experiment 2 varied the distance between the flanker and the target in the probe and the memory list and found the compatibility effect in response time only when the flanker was immediately adjacent to the target in both the probe and the memory list. The effect in accuracy also appeared when the flanker was two positions away in both the probe and the memory list. These results show that attention is focused sharply on elements of a memory structure during retrieval, suggesting that memory retrieval is perceptual attention turned inward.