Internal selective attention is delayed by competition between endogenous and exogenous factors

Abstract

Working memory (WM) is a capacity- and duration-limited system that forms a temporal bridge between sensory phenomena and action. Capacity limits in WM necessitate the existence of external selection mechanisms that control access to this system (i.e., input gating), while changing behavioral demands necessitate the existence of internal selection mechanisms that prioritize existing WM representations for action (i.e., output gating). Whether similar mechanisms mediate WM input and output gating is unclear. We examined this possibility by exploiting a well-known distinction between top-down (endogenous) and bottom-up (exogenous) selection. Specifically, we examined how endogenous and exogenous factors compete to control the selection of WM content by examining their effects on EEG decoding performance. We found no evidence for a reflexive selection of task-irrelevant WM content when endogenous and exogenous factors conflicted. Instead, the selection of task-relevant WM content was delayed when these factors conflicted compared to when they were aligned. Thus, unlike external attention where the real-time balance of competition between endogenous and exogenous factors determines what information is selected, the selection of task-relevant WM content is delayed until competition between endogenous and exogenous factors is resolved.

Neural signatures of competition between voluntary and involuntary influences over the focus of attention in visual working memory

“…The dynamics of the gaze bias, in particular, suggest that anti-retrocues triggered an initial reflexive shift of attention toward the colour-matching item, an operation that would need to be overridden by rule-guided (i.e., voluntary) control of behavior (i.e., select the color-nonmatching item). FMT has long been associated with cognitive control (e.g., Sauseng et al, 2010; Cavanagh & Frank, 2014; Hsieh & Ranganath, 2014), and the fact that post-cue FMT was higher on anti-than pro-retrocue trials is consistent with a role in controlling the competition for selection (for a recent preprint that parallels this finding, see Ester & Nouri, 2022). Furthermore, the fact that post-cue FMT was also higher on pro-than null-retrocue trials suggest a more general role in the control of selection within working memory.…”