Spatiotemporal position overlap disrupts feature binding in visual working memory

This study examined how task-irrelevant spatial and temporal relationships influence feature binding in visual working memory (VWM). Participants viewed two sequential memory displays, each containing two distinct objects. Objects were presented either simultaneously at different locations (thereby sharing temporal position) or sequentially at the same location (thereby sharing spatial position). On each trial, a test probe either matched one of the four memory items or combined features from two different items (non-match). Nonmatching probes were constructed to share spatial, temporal, or neither information with the original memory items. Feature misbinding occurred more frequently when the test probe shared either spatial or temporal attributes with the original items, with no significant difference in error rates between these two types. In Experiment 2, stimuli were presented either bilaterally or unilaterally to test whether spatial configuration influenced binding. While the bilateral condition replicated the findings from Experiment 1, the unilateral condition revealed greater misbinding for temporally overlapping items, suggesting that temporal information may take precedence over spatial information within the same hemifield. These findings demonstrate that the relative contribution of spatial and temporal information to feature binding in VWM is flexible.