The Object-based Retro-cue's Impact On Perceptual Interference In Visual Working Memory

The concept of working memory often includes both the short-term maintenance of task-relevant information and the active rehearsal and manipulation of this information. There is ample evidence shows that the representation is not constant but forming through the maintenance phase of visual working memory (VWM). So far, almost all of the studies about retro-cue benefit are improving the performance by inserting a spacial cue at the maintenance phase of VWM.The cue is always spacial-based that would lead participants'attention to the position of the items. However, visual perceptual studies have demonstrated that beyond space-based attention, information can also be selected in an object-based manner.Although precuing can direct attention to nonspatial features such as color, it has not been established if retro-cues are also capable of this. Moreover, tests on the ability of a cue to counteract the effects of interference during maintenance have provided mixed results.In order to explore the interaction between perceptual interference and object-based retro-cue:Experiment 1 used three different colors as stimulus and the color attribute words as retro-cue with the traditional VWM paradigm to assess whether the object-based retro-cue can counteract the visual-mask costs; in Experiment 2, sequential stimulus were presented in the same position to avoid involving spacial attention that may result from distinct position of stimulus in Experiment 1. Experiment 3 used mental rotation tasks instead of visual masks in experiment 2, in order to assess whether the interruptor task would cause the same results as distractor task in experiment 1 and 2.This research drew the conclusions as follows.Fistly,it will improve the overall performance to insert an object-based retro-cue at the maintenance phase in the visual working memory task.Secondly,interferences such as visual masks and mental rotation tasks will both harmful to the representation maintenance in the visual working memory task.Thirdly,The extent of damage to VWM performance caused by the pattern masks tends to be smaller or gone after a object-based retro-cue.That means a object-based retro-cue will counteract the deteriorating effect of pattern masks.Fourthly,The extent of damage to VWM performance caused by the mental rotation task is unaltered even if a object-based retro-cue was provided. That means an object-based retro-cue can't counteract the deteriorating effect of mental rotattion tasks.