Individual differences in working memory capacity predict visual attention allocation

M Kathryn Bleckley; Francis T Durso; Jerry M Crutchfield; Randall W Engle; Maya M Khanna

doi:10.3758/bf03196548

Individual differences in working memory capacity predict visual attention allocation

Psychon Bull Rev. 2003 Dec;10(4):884-9. doi: 10.3758/bf03196548.

Authors

M Kathryn Bleckley¹, Francis T Durso, Jerry M Crutchfield, Randall W Engle, Maya M Khanna

Affiliation

¹ Department of Psychology, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas 79409-2051, USA. kate.bleckley@ttu.edu

PMID: 15000535
DOI: 10.3758/bf03196548

Abstract

To the extent that individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) reflect differences in attention (Baddeley, 1993; Engle, Kane, & Tuholski, 1999), differences in WMC should predict performance on visual attention tasks. Individuals who scored in the upper and lower quartiles on the OSPAN working memory test performed a modification of Egly and Homa's (1984) selective attention task. In this task, the participants identified a central letter and localized a displaced letter flashed somewhere on one of three concentric rings. When the displaced letter occurred closer to fixation than the cue implied, high-WMC, but not low-WMC, individuals showed a cost in the letter localization task. This suggests that low-WMC participants allocated attention as a spotlight, whereas those with high WMC showed flexible allocation.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Attention*
Discrimination Learning*
Fixation, Ocular
Humans
Individuality*
Memory, Short-Term*
Paired-Associate Learning
Pattern Recognition, Visual*
Problem Solving
Psychophysics
Reaction Time
Serial Learning
Signal Detection, Psychological