Priority states modulate attentional interference from visual working memory representations: Electrophysiological evidence

Abstract

In everyday life, attention is guided by goals stored in visual working memory (VWM). To efficiently complete multiple sequential tasks, attention must focus on the current task while preventing interference from future goals held in a low-activation state within VWM. However, no prior study has directly distinguished the attentional interference from highly activated and lowly activated VWM representations. Using the high-temporal-resolution of event-related potentials (ERPs), the present study investigated the interaction between attentional selection and VWM representations with different priority states. Three priority levels of VWM were manipulated: (1) an item actively held and prioritized for immediate relevance, (2) an item stored but currently unprioritized—potentially relevant for future tasks, and (3) a neutral item never kept in VWM. During a visual search task following the memory phase, a distractor appeared opposite the target, matching the prioritized VWM (prioritized condition) or the unprioritized VWM (unprioritized condition) representation, or being memory-irrelevant (neutral condition). Behaviorally, response times were significantly slower in the prioritized condition compared to the unprioritized and neutral conditions, with no reliable difference between the latter two. In line with behavioral results, ERPs analyses revealed no reliable differences in target-locked late N2pc amplitudes (275–335 ms) between the neutral and unprioritized conditions, while the amplitude was significantly enhanced in the prioritized condition. These findings suggest that attentional interference from VWM-matching distractors flexibly depends on the priority states of VWM representations: only the prioritized VWM representation interacts with attention, whereas the unprioritized VWM representation does not.