Priority states modulate attentional interference from visual working memory representations: Electrophysiological...

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Psychology

Background:

• Attention is guided by goals stored in visual working memory (VWM).
• Efficient task completion requires suppressing interference from future goals in VWM.
• Prior research has not distinguished interference from high vs. low activation VWM states.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the interaction between attentional selection and VWM representations with differing priority states.
• To determine if VWM priority influences attentional interference during visual search.

Main Methods:

• Used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine attentional selection and VWM.
• Manipulated VWM priority into three levels: prioritized, unprioritized, and neutral.
• Conducted a visual search task with distractors matching VWM states.

Main Results:

• Behaviorally, response times were slower when distractors matched prioritized VWM.
• ERPs showed enhanced N2pc amplitudes for prioritized VWM distractors.
• No significant differences in behavioral or ERP measures between unprioritized and neutral conditions were found.

Conclusions:

• Attentional interference from VWM-matching distractors is dependent on VWM priority.
• Only prioritized VWM representations interact with attention.
• Unprioritized VWM representations do not appear to interfere with attentional selection.