Abstract
It has been found that a spatial cue in perception causes benefits through target facilitation at low external noise but noise reduction at high external noise. Assuming that mnemonic attention is similar to perceptual attention, we propose that how a spatial retro-cue is used depends on internal noise. To test this hypothesis, we manipulated internal noise with memory load. We focused on questioning whether/why there was a difference between peripheral and central retro-cues at low or high internal noise. In Experiments 1 and 2, we consistently found that peripheral retro-cues were more effective than central retro-cues at low internal noise. Results from Experiments 3–5 showed that this difference was due to a voluntary process of target facilitation, which happened much earlier on peripheral than central retro-cue trials. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis and indicated that mnemonic attention and perceptual attention could be incorporated into one framework. Nevertheless, spatial retro-cues, including peripheral ones, relied on voluntary control to become effective, different from peripheral cues in perception. To conclude, our findings suggest that the effects of spatial cues on memory and perception are similar but not identical.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available in the OSF repository: https://osf.io/72h84/.
Code availability
The code that supports this study’s findings are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Yichen Wang, Yuhang Li, and Yajing Wang for their experimental assistance. We thank Dr. Klaus Oberauer and Dr. Alessandra Souza for their comments on the manuscript. We also thank editor and reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. This work was supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (17ZDA323), the Shanghai Committee of Science and Technology (19ZR1416700, 17JC1404101, 17JC1404105), and the NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU.
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This work was supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (17ZDA323), the Shanghai Committee of Science and Technology (19ZR1416700, 17JC1404101, 17JC1404105), and the NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU.
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SH and YK designed the study, SH performed experiments, SH analyzed data, SH and YK wrote the article.
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Han, S., Ku, Y. Mnemonic attention in analogy to perceptual attention: harmony but not uniformity. Psychological Research 86, 1274–1296 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-021-01556-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-021-01556-9