This research proposal will address the fundamental issue of how visual attention and visual working memory interact in the context of visual search tasks. Two general questions will be asked: (1) When attention is focused onto an item during visual search, is a representation of that item automatically transferred into visual working memory? (2) Is a template of the target stored in visual working memory in bias attention toward objects that share features with the target? The experiments will use a dual-task methodology in which subjects perform a visual search task while holding a set of objects in visual working memory. Interactions between working memory and attention will be observed in behavioral performance in two main ways: (1) The research task may interfere with the task of holding objects in working memory; (2) The search task may be impaired when working memory is filled by the concurrent memory task. In addition, electrophysiological recordings (event-related potentials) will be used to track the focusing of attention with millisecond resolution during the visual search task. An increased understanding of interactions between attention and working memory may ultimately help us understand disorders of these processes such as attention deficit disorder.
