Logan Gordon D, Afu Keanani C S, Haynes Bailey E, Weeks Ella E, Ulrich Jana E, Lilburn Simon D
Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, 2201 West End Ave, Nashville, TN, 37235, USA.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2024 Nov;86(8):2690-2706. doi: 10.3758/s13414-024-02965-9. Epub 2024 Oct 9.
We report 10 experiments exploring the proposition that memory retrieval is perceptual attention turned inward. The experiments adapt the Eriksen and Eriksen perceptual flanker effect to a memory task in which subjects must decide whether a cued item in a probe display appeared in the same position in a memory list. Previous research with this episodic flanker task found distance and compatibility effects like those in the perceptual flanker task, suggesting that the same attentional spotlight is turned inward in memory retrieval. The previous experiments used lists of six consonants. The experiments reported here were designed to generalize the results to a broader range of conditions, from letters to words, colors, and pictures, and from set size 6 to set sizes of 4 and 5. Experiments 1-4 varied distance and set size with lists of four, five, or six letters, words, colors, and pictures, respectively. The distance effect was observed with all materials and all set sizes. Experiments 5-8 varied compatibility by presenting context items in the probe that were either the same as the memory list (and therefore compatible with "yes" responses and incompatible with "no" responses) or different from the memory list (and therefore incompatible with "yes" responses and compatible with "no" responses). We found compatibility effects with all materials and all set sizes. These results support the proposition that memory retrieval is attention turned inward. Turned inward or outward, attention is a general process that applies the same computations to different kinds of materials.
我们报告了10项实验，探究记忆检索是向内转向的知觉注意这一命题。这些实验将埃里克森和埃里克森的知觉侧翼效应应用于一项记忆任务，即受试者必须判断探测显示中的一个提示项目是否出现在记忆列表中的相同位置。此前关于这项情景侧翼任务的研究发现了与知觉侧翼任务类似的距离和兼容性效应，这表明在记忆检索中同样的注意焦点是向内转向的。之前的实验使用的是由六个辅音组成的列表。此处报告的实验旨在将结果推广到更广泛的条件范围，从字母到单词、颜色和图片，以及从集合大小6到集合大小4和5。实验1至4分别使用由四个、五个或六个字母、单词、颜色和图片组成的列表来改变距离和集合大小。在所有材料和所有集合大小中都观察到了距离效应。实验5至8通过在探测中呈现与记忆列表相同（因此与“是”反应兼容且与“否”反应不兼容）或与记忆列表不同（因此与“是”反应不兼容且与“否”反应兼容）的上下文项目来改变兼容性。我们在所有材料和所有集合大小中都发现了兼容性效应。这些结果支持了记忆检索是向内转向的注意这一命题。无论向内还是向外转向，注意都是一个对不同种类材料应用相同计算的一般过程。
