Does spatial attention modulate sensory memory?
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PLOS
Date
2019-07-11Referencia bibliográfica
Botta F, Martín-Arévalo E, Lupiáñez J, Bartolomeo P (2019) Does spatial attention modulate sensory memory? PLoS ONE 14(7): e0219504.
Sponsorship
FB was supported by a Marie Curie IF fellowship and by national research project PSI2015-73503-JIN. EMA was supported by a Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness (IJCI-2015-23204). PB was supported by ANR through ANR-16-CE37-0005 and ANR-10-IAIHU-06.Abstract
According to some theoretical models, information contained in visual short-term memory
(VSTM) consists of two main memory stages/storages: sensory memory, a system wherein
information is stored for a brief time with high detail and low resistance to visual interference,
and visual working memory, a low-capacity system wherein information is protected from
visual interference and maintained for longer delays. Previous studies have consistently
shown a strong relationship between attention and visual working memory. However, evidence
is contradictory on whether or not attention modulates the construction and maintenance
of visual representations in sensory memory. Here, we examined whether and how
spatial attention differentially affects sensory and working memory contents, by separately
analysing attentional costs and attentional benefits. Results showed that both sensory memory
and visual working memory were reliably affected by the distribution of spatial attention,
suggesting that spatial attention modulates the VSTM content starting from very early
stages of memory storage. Moreover, endogenously attending a specific location led to similar
performance in sensory and working memory, and therefore to larger attentional benefits
in working memory (where there was more room for improvement than in sensory memory,
because of worse performance in unattended locations). On the other hand, exogenous
attentional capture by peripheral unpredictive cues produced invariant attentional costs and
invariant attentional benefits regardless of the memory type, with performance being higher
in sensory memory than in working memory even at the attended location.