A comprehensive comparison of attentional templates maintained in working memory and long-term memory

Visual search could be guided by attentional templates maintained in either working memory (WM) or long-term memory (LTM). Previous studies comparing the attentional guidance of WM and LTM templates yielded mixed results, due to various experimental designs and measurements. The current study makes a comprehensive investigation to compare the attentional guidance of WM and LTM templates across various contexts (independent/competitive) and template loads, utilizing a unified and canonical measurement – search slope. Section one made the comparison in the independent context through a blocked design, where WM and LTM templates did not interfere with each other. The results consistently showed that WM and LTM templates exhibited comparable search efficiency and similar sensitivity to load manipulations (Experiments 1 and 2). Moreover, the comparable search efficiency was not due to the fact that LTM templates were retrieved into WM during search (Experiment 3). Section two employed the competitive context using a mixed design, introducing interference or competition between WM and LTM templates. The results revealed that LTM templates exhibited worse search efficiency and were more affected by increased template loads compared to WM templates (Experiment 4). It was further demonstrated that this discrepancy stemmed from an unequal prioritization between WM and LTM templates in the competitive context (Experiments 5 and 6). These results suggest that attentional templates in both WM and LTM share fundamental similarities in guiding search. However, their search efficiency may be impacted by their relative priorities in contexts involving interference or competition.