Arora Kabir, Gayet Surya, Kenemans J Leon, Van der Stigchel Stefan, Chota Samson
Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 1, 3584CS Utrecht, the Netherlands.
iScience. 2025 Mar 25;28(4):112282. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.112282. eCollection 2025 Apr 18.
Just as attention can shift externally toward relevant objects in the visual environment, it can shift internally toward relevant items within Visual Working Memory (VWM). Recent work has shown that spatial attention is automatically directed toward the previous location of an attended memory item, as it is to locations of perceived stimuli. When attending memory items, however, there is no sensory information to be processed at the previous location. Thus, we asked whether internal attention-akin to external attention-modulates sensory processing. In two EEG experiments, we compared location-specific sensory enhancements during attentional selection of external (perceived) versus internal (memorized) stimuli. Alpha-power and gaze-position biases confirmed an inherent spatial organization within VWM. However, Rapid Invisible Frequency Tagging (RIFT) revealed sensory modulation only during external attentional selection. Thus, VWM is not blindly recruiting existing mechanisms of external attention, but instead uses space as an organizational principle to store and select memories.
正如注意力可以向外转移到视觉环境中的相关物体上一样，它也可以向内转移到视觉工作记忆（VWM）中的相关项目上。最近的研究表明，空间注意力会自动指向被关注记忆项目的先前位置，就像它会指向感知刺激的位置一样。然而，当关注记忆项目时，先前位置没有要处理的感官信息。因此，我们询问内部注意力是否类似于外部注意力那样调节感官处理。在两项脑电图实验中，我们比较了在对外部（感知到的）与内部（记忆中的）刺激进行注意力选择期间特定位置的感官增强情况。阿尔法波功率和注视位置偏差证实了VWM内存在固有的空间组织。然而，快速隐形频率标记（RIFT）显示只有在外部注意力选择期间才存在感官调制。因此，VWM并非盲目地采用现有的外部注意力机制，而是将空间用作一种组织原则来存储和选择记忆。
