Functional biases in attentional templates from associative memory

Searching near and far: The attentional template incorporates viewing distance

According to theories of visual search, observers generate a visual representation of the search target (the "attentional template") that guides spatial attention toward target-like visual input. In real-world vision, however, objects produce vastly different visual input depending on their location: your car produces a retinal image that is 10 times smaller when it is parked 50 compared to 5 m away. Across four experiments, we investigated whether the attentional template incorporates viewing distance when observers search for familiar object categories. On each trial, participants were precued to search for a car or person in the near or far plane of an outdoor scene. In "search trials," the scene reappeared and participants had to indicate whether the search target was present or absent. In intermixed "catch-trials," two silhouettes were briefly presented on either side of fixation (matching the shape and/or predicted size of the search target), one of which was followed by a probe-stimulus. We found that participants were more accurate at reporting the location (Experiments 1 and 2) and orientation (Experiment 3) of probe stimuli when they were presented at the location of size-matching silhouettes. Thus, attentional templates incorporate the predicted size of an object based on the current viewing distance. This was only the case, however, when silhouettes also matched the shape of the search target (Experiment 2). We conclude that attentional templates for finding objects in scenes are shaped by a combination of category-specific attributes (shape) and context-dependent expectations about the likely appearance (size) of these objects at the current viewing location. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Learned associations serve as target proxies during difficult but not easy visual search

The target template contains information in memory that is used to guide attention during visual search and is typically thought of as containing features of the actual target object. However, when targets are hard to find, it is advantageous to use other information in the visual environment that is predictive of the target's location to help guide attention. The purpose of these studies was to test if newly learned associations between face and scene category images lead observers to use scene information as a proxy for the face target. Our results showed that scene information was used as a proxy for the target to guide attention but only when the target face was difficult to discriminate from the distractor face; when the faces were easy to distinguish, attention was no longer guided by the scene unless the scene was presented earlier. The results suggest that attention is flexibly guided by both target features as well as features of objects that are predictive of the target location. The degree to which each contributes to guiding attention depends on the efficiency with which that information can be used to decode the location of the target in the current moment. The results contribute to the view that attentional guidance is highly flexible in its use of information to rapidly locate the target.

Good-enough attentional guidance

Theories of attention posit that attentional guidance operates on information held in a target template within memory. The template is often thought to contain veridical target features, akin to a photograph, and to guide attention to objects that match the exact target features. However, recent evidence suggests that attentional guidance is highly flexible and often guided by non-veridical features, a subset of features, or only associated features. We integrate these findings and propose that attentional guidance maximizes search efficiency based on a 'good-enough' principle to rapidly localize candidate target objects. Candidates are then serially interrogated to make target-match decisions using more precise information. We suggest that good-enough guidance optimizes the speed-accuracy-effort trade-offs inherent in each stage of visual search.

Turning Attention Inside Out: How Working Memory Serves Behavior

Flexible behavior requires guidance not only by sensations that are available immediately but also by relevant mental contents carried forward through working memory. Therefore, selective-attention functions that modulate the contents of working memory to guide behavior (inside-out) are just as important as those operating on sensory signals to generate internal contents (outside-in). We review the burgeoning literature on selective attention in the inside-out direction and underscore its functional, flexible, and future-focused nature. We discuss in turn the purpose (why), targets (what), sources (when), and mechanisms (how) of selective attention inside working memory, using visual working memory as a model. We show how the study of internal selective attention brings new insights concerning the core cognitive processes of attention and working memory and how considering selective attention and working memory together paves the way for a rich and integrated understanding of how mind serves behavior.

Attentional priority is determined by predicted feature distributions

Visual attention is often characterized as being guided by precise memories for target objects. However, real-world search targets have dynamic features that vary over time, meaning that observers must predict how the target could look based on how features are expected to change. Despite its importance, little is known about how target feature predictions influence feature-based attention, or how these predictions are represented in the target template. In Experiment 1 (N = 60 university students), we show observers readily track the statistics of target features over time and adapt attentional priority to predictions about the distribution of target features. In Experiments 2a and 2b (N = 480 university students), we show that these predictions are encoded into the target template as a distribution of likelihoods over possible target features, which are independent of memory precision for the cued item. These results provide a novel demonstration of how observers represent predicted feature distributions when target features are uncertain and show that these predictions are used to set attentional priority during visual search. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Visual Working Memory Adapts to the Nature of Anticipated Interference

Visual working memory has been proven to be relatively robust against interference. However, little is known on whether such robust coding is obligatory, or can be flexibly recruited depending on its expected usefulness. To address this, participants remembered both the color and orientation of a grating. During the maintenance, we inserted a secondary color/orientation memory task, interfering with the primary task. Crucially, we varied the expectations of the type of interference by varying the probability of the two types of intervening task. Behavioral data indicate that to-be-remembered features for which interference is expected are bolstered, whereas to-be-remembered features for which no interference is expected are left vulnerable. This was further supported by fMRI data obtained from visual cortex. In conclusion, the flexibility of visual working memory allows it to strengthen memories for which it anticipates the highest risk of interference.