The Role of Working Memory in Dual-Target Visual Search

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Elena S. Gorbunova¹  Sofia Tkhan Tin Le¹  Ivan M. Makarov¹ 

[1] School of Psychology, National Research University Higher School of Economics

关键词: visual attention;    visual search;    multiple targets;    working memory;    subsequent search misses;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01673

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Visual search (VS) for multiple targets is especially error prone. One of these errors is called subsequent search misses (SSM) and represents a decrease in accuracy at detecting a second target after a first target has been found. One of the possible explanations of SSM errors is working memory (WM) resource depletion. Three experiments investigated the role of WM in SSM errors using a dual task paradigm. The first experiment investigated the role of object WM using a classical color change detection task. In the second and the third experiments, a modified change detection task was applied, using shape as the relevant feature. The results of our study revealed no effect of additional WM task on second target detection in dual-target VS. To this end, SSM errors are not related to WM resource depletion. On the contrary, WM task performance was violated by dual-target VS as compared to single-target VS, when the targets in VS task were defined by the same feature used in the WM task.

【 授权许可】

CC BY