A Behavior Study On The Beneficial Effect Of Utilizing Different Storage Systems Of Working Memory On Attentional Blink

The attentional blink (AB) is a phenomenon that describes the difficultly individuals have in reporting the second of two masked targets if the second target (T2) arrives200-500ms after the first target (T1). Many theories suggest that Tl depletes the limited cognitive resources available and it is this that underlies the AB. However, many-recent studies refute this explanation. For example, researcher found that participants could process3or more than3sequential targets at a time; the attentional blink deficit could be attenuated when participant complete a memory task as doing the main task; about5%population have no attentional blink deficit. These findings listed above can not be well explained by limited cognitive resources theories. So, researchers try to explain the attentional blink in cognitive control theories. And, how to control the inference between the targets and the distractors in order to improve the percentage of correct response on targets becomes an important research direction. However, in both limited cognitive resources theories and cognitive control theories, researchers take the working memory as a whole and acknowledge its important role on attentional blink. In this study, we try to utilize different storage systems of working memory to process the targets and the distractors separately in order to decrease the interference between the two kinds of processing. If the attentional blink deficit could be attenuated significantly under this way, we can use inverse analysis to approve the important effect of interference between the targets and the distractors on attentional blink and further confirm that the important role of cognitive control on effectively process items accurse time.Experiment1. comparing to the control condition which used the letters as targets and the digits as distractors, in the experimental condition we used the colored squares as targets and the digits as distractors. We deemed that in the control condition the processing of target and distractors would be done in phonological loop whereas in the experimental condition the two processing could be done in visuospatial sketchpad and phonological loop separately. The result showed that the attentional blink deficit was significantly attenuated in the experimental condition which approve that the inference could be reduced if we use different storage system to process the target and the distractors separately.Experiment2, according to the logic of Experiment1, we tried to move forward a step to discuss the effect of utilizing different storage systems to process targets and distractors separately. In this experiment, we kept the digits as distractors constant in both conditions. We changed the targets from letters in the control condition to fantasy letters in the experimental conditions. The fantasy letters could just be processed in visuospatial sketchpad because they could not be named. The result showed that the attentional blink deficit was attenuated significantly in the experimental condition. So, we could the important role of reducing interference on attentional blink.Experiment3, between-subject design was taken. In both control condition and experimental condition, alphanumeric stimuli were used. The only difference between the two conditions was the instruction. In the control condition, participants got the normal instruction whereas in the experimental condition participants got the special instruction. In the experimental condition, participants were told to keep the figures of the targets once they appeared and at the end of each trial they should then recall the targets according to the figures. We deemed that the special instruction could lead the targets processed in visuospatial sketchpad in order to reduce the interference with the distractors. The result showed that the attentional blink deficit was significantly attenuated in the special instruction condition. Then we could suggested that participants could use cognitive control to employ different processing ways to process the targets and the distractors separately in order to reduce the interference and the attentional blink deficit.The present study suggest, although the process ability across time is limited by the cognitive resources, we can effectively utilize the limited cognitive resources under effective cognitive control in order to reduce the interference between difference processes and then reduce the attentional blink deficit. We found that cognitive resources could be spared to process the targets when no or less cognitive resources should be left to reduce interference between the targets and the distractors, resulting in a smaller attentional blink.