Conditional automaticity of memory-driven attention: Dissociable effects on reaction time and accuracy

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Visual Perception

Background:

• Attention is known to be biased by working memory (WM) contents.
• The precise processing stage at which memory-driven attentional capture (MDAC) influences perception remains debated.
• Reaction time (RT) alone is insufficient to differentiate perceptual interference from later cognitive costs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether WM-matching distractors impact target perception.
• To differentiate between perceptual interference and later decisional/response costs.
• To determine the processing stage affected by MDAC.

Main Methods:

• Two visual search tasks with varying filtering demands and structures were employed.
• Both reaction time (RT) and accuracy were measured to assess target-report fidelity.
• Accuracy was prioritized as the primary index of performance.

Main Results:

• WM-matching distractors consistently slowed responses, indicating a strong attentional priority signal.
• Distractor presence affected accuracy, with effects varying by task and set size.
• Crucially, WM-matching distractors did not cause a greater accuracy decrease than nonmatching distractors.

Conclusions:

• MDAC reliably biases attention, but this effect is primarily reflected in reaction time, not accuracy.
• The influence of WM-matching distractors appears to occur at later processing stages, downstream from initial target encoding.
• Findings challenge the notion that WM-matching distractors uniformly impair perceptual processing.