Visual working-memory capacity load does not modulate distractor processing
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Visual working-memory capacity load does not modulate distractor processing Nailang Yao 1 & Yang Guo 1 & Yang Liu 1 & Mowei Shen 1 & Zaifeng Gao 1
# The Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2020
Abstract Over the last decade, researchers have explored the influence of visual working-memory (WM) load on selective attention in general, by focusing on the modulation of visual WM load on distractor processing in perception. However, there were three distinct hypotheses (perceptual-load hypothesis, resolution hypothesis, and domain-specific hypothesis) with different predictions. While the perceptual-load hypothesis suggests that visual WM capacity load serves as a type of perceptual load, the latter two hypotheses consider visual WM capacity load acting as a type of central executive load, with a constraint that the domainspecific hypothesis claimed that only a content overlap existed between WM load and the perceptual task. By adding a flanker task into the maintenance phase of visual WM, here we attempted to understand the influence of visual WM load on distractor processing. We systematically manipulated the parameters of the task setting between WM and flanker tasks (Experiments 1–4), the perceptual load of flanker task (Experiment 5), the settings of the flanker stimuli and the WM load (Experiment 6), and the content overlap between WM task and flanker task and the exposure time of flanker task (Experiments 7, 8, and 9). However, in 11 out of 12 sub-experiments we consistently found that the visual WM load did not modulate the distractor processing. The implications of these findings are discussed. Keywords Visual working memory . Selective attention . Distractor processing
Introduction Selective attention addresses the tendency of cognitive processing to be confined largely to information that is relevant to on-going behavior (Moore & Zirnsak, 2017). It is among the most fundamental cognitive functions of human beings (Failing & Theeuwes, 2018; Moore & Zirnsak, 2017). A central question in selective attention regards when the taskirrelevant distractions are processed and when they are not (i.e., early vs. late selection, for reviews see Moore & Zirnsak, 2017; Murphy, Groeger, & Greene, 2016). It is now well recognized that the ability to ignore irrelevant distractors is modulated by the type and level of processing load involved Nailang Yao, Yang Guo, and Yang Liu provided equal contribution; they are listed in alphabetical order of their names. * Mowei Shen [email protected] * Zaifeng Gao [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Xixi Campus, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310007, People’s Republic of China
in the current task (for reviews, see Lavie, 2005; Lavie, Beck, & Konstantinou, 2014; Murphy et al., 2016; but see Tsal & Benoni, 2010), which has been elaborated in Lavie’s load theory (e.g., Lavie, 1995; Lavie, Hirst, De Fockert, & Viding, 2004). Particularly, load theory distinguishes perceptual load and cognitive load. Distractor processing is eliminated under high perceptual load r
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