Journal article
Selection of multiple cued items is possible during visual short-term memory maintenance
Attention, perception & psychophysics, Vol.77(5), pp.1625-1646
07/2015
DOI: 10.3758/s13414-015-0836-2
PMID: 25824888
Abstract
Recent neuroimaging studies suggest that maintenance of a selected object feature held in visual short-term/working memory (VSTM/VWM) is supported by the same neural mechanisms that encode the sensory information. If VSTM operates by retaining "reasonable copies" of scenes constructed during sensory processing (Serences, Ester, Vogel, & Awh, 2009, p. 207, the sensory recruitment hypothesis), then attention should be able to select multiple items represented in VSTM as long as the number of these attended items does not exceed the typical VSTM capacity. It is well known that attention can select at least two noncontiguous locations at the same time during sensory processing. However, empirical reports from the studies that examined this possibility are inconsistent. In the present study, we demonstrate that (1) attention can indeed select more than a single item during VSTM maintenance when observers are asked to recognize a set of items in the manner that these items were originally attended, and (2) attention can select multiple cued items regardless of whether these items are perceptually organized into a single group (contiguous locations) or not (noncontiguous locations). The results also replicate and extend the recent finding that selective attention that operates during VSTM maintenance is sensitive to the observers' goal and motivation to use the cueing information.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Selection of multiple cued items is possible during visual short-term memory maintenance
- Creators
- Michi Matsukura - Department of Psychology, University of Iowa, 11 Seashore Hall E, Iowa City, IA, 52242, USA, michi-matsukura@uiowa.eduShaun P Vecera
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Attention, perception & psychophysics, Vol.77(5), pp.1625-1646
- Publisher
- United States
- DOI
- 10.3758/s13414-015-0836-2
- PMID
- 25824888
- ISSN
- 1943-3921
- eISSN
- 1943-393X
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 07/2015
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
- Record Identifier
- 9984066146802771
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