The role of eye movements and covert shifts of attention in working memory retrieval

During retrieval from episodic memory, individuals often exhibit the "Looking at Nothing" effect (LAN), where they tend to gaze back at locations where the information was initially presented. Scholz et al. (2018) demonstrated that LAN could enhance memory performance not only through eye movements but also via covert attention shifts. The aim of our study was to investigate whether this is also the case for retrieval from working memory. Participants encoded three word-pairs at three distinct locations. At retrieval, participants' memory for one word pair was assessed using auditory cues related to the target pair. We manipulated either the location of gaze or of covert attention during retrieval by introducing a digit tracking task at one of three locations: congruent (where the tested word pair was originally presented), incongruent (a different location), or central. We found evidence against any difference in memory performance between the cue conditions. Attending the location at which memory information has been perceived appears to be beneficial for retrieval from episodic memory but not for retrieval from working memory.