Involuntary and voluntary processes compete for entering the focus of attention of working memory.

Representations in the focus of attention (FoA) of working memory (WM) have the highest activation state and processing privilege among representations in WM. There are two distinct processes for representations entering the FoA: involuntary and voluntary. The former is an automatic attentional response to stimuli, while the latter is directed by the central executive. Although extensive WM research has examined these processes individually, their interaction, particularly in competitive scenarios, remains poorly understood. To address this, we conducted experiments by displaying memorized stimuli that contain a color singleton to trigger an involuntary process, followed by a retro-cue in the WM maintenance phase to initiate a voluntary process. By manipulating the retro-cue validity, we probed how the singleton effect was modulated when the two processes had distinct targets. Our findings indicated that when the retro-cue validity was low, the singleton effect remained unaffected by a retro-cue directing to a nonsingleton target. However, when the retro-cue validity was high, the singleton effect was eliminated on reaction time, suggesting that involuntary and voluntary processes compete for a limited capacity of the FoA, with the stronger one prevailing in this competition. These findings illuminate the intricate interplay between involuntary and voluntary attentional processes in WM and offer critical insights into the nature and allocation mechanisms of the FoA. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).