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The Role of Working Memory in Probabilistic Cuing of Visual Search

The Role of Working Memory in Probabilistic Cuing of Visual Search In a typical probabilistic cuing experiment, participants are asked to find a visual target among a series of distractors. Although participants are not informed about this, the target appears more frequently in one region of the display, resulting in faster search times for targets located in this region. This bias is thought to depend on a habit-like attentional control mechanism, unconstrained by the availability of working memory (WM) resources. However, the only study that has explored this feature in the past suffers from methodological shortcomings that leave the results open to alternative explanations. In three experiments, we aimed to confirm whether probabilistic cuing is unaffected by visual, spatial, and spatiotemporal WM load. For each experiment, one group of participants performed the visual search task during the retention interval of a WM task (high-load group), whereas another group of participants (no-load group) carried out the visual search task after the WM task. We hypothesized that the probabilistic cuing effect would be larger for the no-load group compared to the high-load group. This hypothesis was confirmed in one experiment, but exploratory analyses suggest that the results can be highly dependent on the analytic approach, casting doubts on its robustness. Overall, our results provide partial support for the hypothesis that probabilistic cuing is not affected by a secondary task. However, given that some analyses reveal an effect of WM load, we conclude that it might be premature to rule out the possibility that the expression of this attentional bias requires WM resources. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and Cognition American Psychological Association

The Role of Working Memory in Probabilistic Cuing of Visual Search

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Publisher
American Psychological Association
Copyright
© 2022 American Psychological Association
ISSN
0278-7393
eISSN
1939-1285
DOI
10.1037/xlm0001193
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

In a typical probabilistic cuing experiment, participants are asked to find a visual target among a series of distractors. Although participants are not informed about this, the target appears more frequently in one region of the display, resulting in faster search times for targets located in this region. This bias is thought to depend on a habit-like attentional control mechanism, unconstrained by the availability of working memory (WM) resources. However, the only study that has explored this feature in the past suffers from methodological shortcomings that leave the results open to alternative explanations. In three experiments, we aimed to confirm whether probabilistic cuing is unaffected by visual, spatial, and spatiotemporal WM load. For each experiment, one group of participants performed the visual search task during the retention interval of a WM task (high-load group), whereas another group of participants (no-load group) carried out the visual search task after the WM task. We hypothesized that the probabilistic cuing effect would be larger for the no-load group compared to the high-load group. This hypothesis was confirmed in one experiment, but exploratory analyses suggest that the results can be highly dependent on the analytic approach, casting doubts on its robustness. Overall, our results provide partial support for the hypothesis that probabilistic cuing is not affected by a secondary task. However, given that some analyses reveal an effect of WM load, we conclude that it might be premature to rule out the possibility that the expression of this attentional bias requires WM resources.

Journal

Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and Cognition – American Psychological Association

Published: Jul 3, 2023

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