Attention Allocation in Visual Working Memory: A Study Testing the Influence of Distractors on Attentional Resources Under Increased Cognitive Load

Abstract

Research has shown a close relationship between attentional mechanisms and the visual working memory system which is highly selective and limited in its capacity. Some suggest that attention allocation is automatic in the presence of distractors in the visual field while others suggest that it may be more of a selective process. The working memory system has limited available resources and cannot attend to, and maintain, everything in the visual field at once while storing other important information. In the current study, we aimed to address these factors through a visual working memory study testing attention allocation in the presence of distractors and under varying levels of cognitive load. We hypothesized that in the presence of irrelevant stimuli that are similar to the information being stored in working memory (matching distractors), people will be slower in attending to the target object than when there are no matching distractors. To test this, we had two groups, one test group with search tasks containing matching distractors and one target, and a control group with mismatching distractors and one target and recorded response times to the target object. We also included a cognitive load component between trials to see how maintaining more items in working memory may impact response time to the target and hypothesized that people will be slower to respond when cognitive load is higher. Results failed to find evidence to support our main hypotheses due to a number of limiting factors, but still has implications for future research in the field.