Working Memory Research On Visual Search Interference Effect

In recent years, the research on working memory and visual search has become a hot spot in the field of cognitive psychology. From now, the research on the effect of working memory on visual search mainly includes the following two aspects:(1) study on the impact of the short-term storage function of working memory on visual search;(2) study on the impact of the central executive function of working memory on visual search. Although cognitive psychology research on the effect of working memory on the visual search at present had some achievements, however, as the current research to see, there is few scholars study the impact of the central executive function on the visual search. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to verify the interference effect of the storage function of working memory on the visual search, and the interference effect of the central executive function on visual search, and in the latter, on the basis of above research, we will further study the different degree interference effect of each sub-component of central executive function on visual search respectively.This article includes five sub-experiments to verify the interference effect of the storage function of working memory on visual search, by comparing the result of visual search work under the dual-task condition of the working memory and visual search task and the result of visual search work under single-task of visual search, as well as the interference effect of the central executive function on the visual search. And on the basis of that, the article will further research the interference effect of three sub-components of central executive function: inhibition, conversion and refresh function on the visual search.The experimental results show that:(1) There is no significant difference between the results of the visual search tasks under the dual-tasks conditions of the working memory storage and visual search and the results under the condition of single task.(2) There are significant differences between the results of the visual search tasks under the dual-tasks conditions of the inhibition function and visual search, the refresh function and visual search and the results under the condition of single task. But compared with the result under the condition of single task, the result under the dual-task condition of the conversion function and visual search is not different significantly. The experimental results show that:the storage function of working memory has no interference effects on the visual search, and the inhibition function,refresh function in the central executive function has obvious interference effect on the visual search, in addition, the conversion function, as same as storage function, has no interference effect on the visual search.