Abstract：
Previous evidence has shown that the contents of working memory (WM) can bias visual selection. However, not much is known about how WM effects change when the WM representation is held in different prioritization states. Here, we investigated this problem using event-related potentials. Subjects maintained two colors in WM while performing a search task. One of the colors was retro-cued, indicating that it was 80 % likely to be the target of the memory test. During the search display, one of the distractors was a salient color singleton, and this singleton distractor could carry the same color as the cued WM representation, the uncued WM representation, or be irrelevant to the memory content. Behaviorally, the memory test performance was found to be better for the cued color than for the uncued color, and we observed lower search accuracy (ACC) and longer search reaction time (RT) when the singleton distractor matched the cued WM representation than when it matched an uncued or an irrelevant WM representation. Event-related potential (ERP) data showed that the P3 amplitude of cue-color distractor conditions was smaller than that of uncued-color distractor conditions and irrelevant-color distractor conditions. These findings clearly indicate that prioritizing an item for enhanced representational quality enables the item to bias attention to a greater extent.
摘要：
先前的证据表明，工作记忆（WM）的内容会使视觉选择产生偏差。然而,当WM表示保持在不同的优先级状态时，关于WM效果如何变化的了解不多。这里,我们使用事件相关电位研究了这个问题.受试者在执行搜索任务时在WM中保持两种颜色。其中一种颜色是复古的，表明它有80%可能是记忆测试的目标。在搜索显示期间，其中一个干扰因素是一个显著的颜色单身人士，这个单例干扰物可以携带与提示WM表示相同的颜色，未提示的WM表示，或者与内存内容无关。行为上,发现提示颜色的记忆测试性能优于未提示颜色的记忆测试性能，并且我们观察到，当单例干扰物匹配提示的WM表示时，与匹配未提示或无关的WM表示时，搜索精度（ACC）和搜索反应时间（RT）较低。事件相关电位（ERP）数据表明，提示颜色干扰物条件的P3幅度小于未提示颜色干扰物条件和无关颜色干扰物条件的P3幅度。这些发现清楚地表明，优先考虑项目以提高代表性质量可以使项目在更大程度上偏向注意力。
