The role of working memory in contextual cueing of visual attention

Francisco Vicente-Conesa; Tamara Giménez-Fernández; David R Shanks; Miguel A Vadillo

doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2022.05.019

The role of working memory in contextual cueing of visual attention

Cortex. 2022 Sep:154:287-298. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2022.05.019. Epub 2022 Jun 13.

Authors

Francisco Vicente-Conesa¹, Tamara Giménez-Fernández¹, David R Shanks², Miguel A Vadillo³

Affiliations

¹ Departamento de Psicología Básica, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.
² Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, UK.
³ Departamento de Psicología Básica, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. Electronic address: miguel.vadillo@uam.es.

PMID: 35816850
DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2022.05.019

Abstract

It is usually easier to find objects in familiar contexts that we have seen before. The type of learning that underlies this facilitation, known as contextual cueing, has been understood as an incidental and automatic process given that, among other reasons, it seems to be independent of working memory (WM) resources. This claim has found support in previous research showing that contextual cueing can be acquired latently, while participants perform a demanding WM task. However, previous studies have not always found this pattern of results and, in general, the available evidence is far from conclusive. The aim of the present study was to clarify the role of WM in contextual learning with two large-sample, confirmatory experiments. Our results show a robust contextual cueing effect even when visuospatial working memory resources were recruited by a demanding secondary task.

Keywords: Contextual cueing; Implicit learning; Working memory.

Publication types

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

MeSH terms

Cues*
Humans
Learning
Memory, Short-Term*
Reaction Time