The Role of Working Memory in Visual Selective Attention

摘要: The hypothesis that working memory is crucial for reducing distraction by maintaining the prioritization of relevant information was tested in neuroimaging and psychological experiments with humans. Participants performed a selective attention task required them to ignore distractor faces while holding sequence digits were same order (low load) or different (high on every trial. Higher load, associated increased prefrontal activity, resulted greater interference effects behavioral performance from faces, plus face-related activity visual cortex. These findings confirm major role control attention.