Attentional boost effect and pattern separation with visual and verbal materials

The Attentional Boost Effect (ABE) refers to the finding that images encoded with to-be-responded targets are later remembered more accurately than images encoded with to-be-ignored distractors. The Dual-Task Interaction Model posits that the Attentional Boost Effect (ABE) elicits a transient enhancement in the perceptual resources allocated to the processing of target-associated images. With visual materials, this assumption has been supported by previous data showing that the ABE enhances pattern separation. In the present study we sought to determine first whether this facilitation could be replicated using a different paradigm, and second whether it could be extended to verbal materials. Furthermore, the use of words allowed us to disentangle the impact of the ABE on perceptual and conceptual pattern separation. The results showed that the ABE enhanced traditional recognition memory in all cases, whereas it failed to increase pattern separation, irrespective of the nature of the processes involved and the number of response options available in the recognition task. Our data are consistent with the idea that the ABE with verbal materials operates at the level of abstract, amodal representations.