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Published on: December 5, 2014
Orienting selective attention within long-term contextual memories
Melinda Sabo1, William Narhi-Martinez2, Nahid Zokaei3
1Department of Psychology and Wu Tsai Institute, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA. Melinda.sabo@yale.edu.
Communications Psychology
|July 16, 2026
Summary
Selective attention guides long-term memory retrieval. Spatial cues enhance memory recall by directing internal attention, demonstrating attention
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Memory Research
Background:
- Selective attention is crucial for retrieving long-term memories.
- Mechanisms of attentional selection in long-term memory retrieval are not fully understood.
- Existing research often uses working memory paradigms.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate an experimental framework for studying selective attention in long-term memory retrieval.
- To investigate how spatial cues influence the prioritization of memory contents.
- To provide a method for future research on the psychological and neural bases of selective memory access.
Main Methods:
- Three pre-registered experiments with 235 participants.
- Participants learned scene-object associations (identity and location).
- A Selective Retrieval task used spatial precues and retrocues to direct attention during memory recall.
Main Results:
- Informative spatial cues significantly improved (benefits) and impaired (costs) object retrieval compared to neutral cues.
- Attentional benefits were observed irrespective of cue timing (pre- or retrocue).
- Benefits were evident even with minimal retrieval intervals.
Conclusions:
- The developed framework effectively isolates and manipulates attentional functions in long-term memory.
- Spatial attention plays a critical role in prioritizing relevant information for retrieval from long-term memory.
- This methodology facilitates future investigations into the cognitive and neural underpinnings of selective memory retrieval.
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