Massive Effects of Saliency on Information Processing in Visual Working Memory

Abstract

Limitations in the ability to temporarily represent information in visual working memory (VWM) are crucial for visual cognition. Whether VWM processing is dependent on an object’s saliency (i.e., how much it stands out) has been neglected in VWM research. Therefore, we developed a novel VWM task that allows direct control over saliency. In three experiments with this task (on 10, 31, and 60 adults, respectively), we consistently found that VWM performance is strongly and parametrically influenced by saliency and that both an object’s relative saliency (compared with concurrently presented objects) and absolute saliency influence VWM processing. We also demonstrated that this effect is indeed due to bottom-up saliency rather than differential fit between each object and the top-down attentional template. A simple computational model assuming that VWM performance is determined by the weighted sum of absolute and relative saliency accounts well for the observed data patterns.

Memory precision for salient distractors decreases with learned suppression

“…There has been substantial evidence over the last decade that salient distractors can be suppressed during visual search, particularly when the distractor features recur and are predictable (Chelazzi et al, 2019;Gaspelin & Luck, 2018b;Geng et al, 2019;Noonan et al, 2018). Recent work has provided further evidence that suppression is related to participant awareness of the salient distractor (Adams & Gaspelin, 2020;Adams & Gaspelin, 2021;Constant and Liesefeld, 2021;Won et al, 2019). However, the relationship between attentional suppression of salient distractors and memory for their features and confidence in awareness has not yet been assessed.…”

“…Two recent studies, however, have shown a relationship between perceptual salience, attention, and awareness (Adams & Gaspelin, 2020;Constant & Liesefeld, 2021). Constant and Liesefeld (2021) used a parametric manipulation of salience and found a monotonic relationship between bottom-up saliency and the probability of memory for the item, although interestingly, the precision of the memory was not affected by saliency. Relatedly, Adams and Gaspelin (2020) found that participants were more likely to report awareness of a color singleton distractor from visual search trials with larger RT capture effects (Belopolsky et al, 2008).…”

“…Although task-irrelevant, but salient, stimuli are more likely to capture attention, the relationship between involuntary attentional capture and subsequent attentional engagement, memory, and awareness is still debated (Zivony & Lamy, 2016, 2018. Two recent studies, however, have shown a relationship between perceptual salience, attention, and awareness (Adams & Gaspelin, 2020;Constant & Liesefeld, 2021). Constant and Liesefeld (2021) used a parametric manipulation of salience and found a monotonic relationship between bottom-up saliency and the probability of memory for the item, although interestingly, the precision of the memory was not affected by saliency.…”

EEG evidence for enhanced attentional performance during moderate‐intensity exercise

“…As such, distractor suppression mechanisms may have been given distributional priority, their performance being preserved at the expense of target-selective mechanisms when neurometabolic demands exceeded the available supply. Although mainly speculative, this might be corroborated through additional manipulations to the attentional demands of both distractor and target processing-for instance, by assessing whether this hierarchy is maintained when the levels of target or distractor saliency are modified (see Constant & Liesefeld, 2021;Liesefeld et al, 2016;Töllner et al, 2011).…”

Attentional capture: An ameliorable side-effect of searching for salient targets

“…Furthermore, heterogeneous non-targets yield local feature contrast among each other and these salient non-targets therefore, generate peaks on the priority map that would compete with the target peak for attention allocations. Thus, display heterogeneity decreases the relative saliency of targets (see Constant & Liesefeld, 2021;Duncan & Humphreys, 1989). Accordingly, relying on saliency to find targets in highly heterogenous or sparse displays is not expedient, because it is unlikely that the priority map will guide attention to a target of low (relative) saliency.…”