Bindings in working memory: The role of object-based attention

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• 作者：Zaifeng Gao ; Fan Wu ; Fangfang Qiu ; Kaifeng He…
• 关键词：Attention and memory ; Object ; based attention ; Working memory
• 刊名：Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：February 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：79
• 期：2
• 页码：533-552
• 全文大小：
• 刊物主题：Cognitive Psychology;
• 出版者：Springer US
• ISSN：1943-393X
• 卷排序：79

文摘

Over the past decade, it has been debated whether retaining bindings in working memory (WM) requires more attention than retaining constituent features, focusing on domain-general attention and space-based attention. Recently, we proposed that retaining bindings in WM needs more object-based attention than retaining constituent features (Shen, Huang, & Gao, 2015, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, doi:10.1037/xhp0000018). However, only unitized visual bindings were examined; to establish the role of object-based attention in retaining bindings in WM, more emperical evidence is required. We tested 4 new bindings that had been suggested requiring no more attention than the constituent features in the WM maintenance phase: The two constituent features of binding were stored in different WM modules (cross-module binding, Experiment 1), from auditory and visual modalities (cross-modal binding, Experiment 2), or temporally (cross-time binding, Experiments 3) or spatially (cross-space binding, Experiments 4–pan class="InternalRef">6) separated. In the critical condition, we added a secondary object feature-report task during the delay interval of the change-detection task, such that the secondary task competed for object-based attention with the to-be-memorized stimuli. If more object-based attention is required for retaining bindings than for retaining constituent features, the secondary task should impair the binding performance to a larger degree relative to the performance of constituent features. Indeed, Experiments 1–pan class="InternalRef">6 consistently revealed a significantly larger impairment for bindings than for the constituent features, suggesting that object-based attention plays a pivotal role in retaining bindings in WM.