Prioritization in Visual Working Memory: An Investigation of Distractor Susceptibility and Different Prioritization Modes

Previous studies suggest that information in the focus of attention in working memory is better remembered, accessed faster, and better protected from perceptual interference than information outside of the focus of attention. However, this protection has been challenged by studies showing particular vulnerability to perceptual interference within the focus of attention. To advance this debate, the current study investigated whether focusing attention on to-be-prioritized information makes it more or less susceptible to distractors. For this purpose, we made use of two prioritization modes: retro-cueing and rewarding. Throughout ten behavioral experiments in which we used two different paradigms and varied several task parameters, we did not observe any convincing evidence for a detrimental impact of perceptual interference on memory performance, regardless of whether and how the to-be-remembered information had been prioritized. This was unexpected and suggests that visual working memory might be more resilient to perceptual interference than previously assumed. These findings, along with recent studies, indicate that the key question is when information in working memory is vulnerable to interference, rather than how the focus of attention interacts with this vulnerability to protect it. Moreover, cross-experiment analyses revealed that cue-based prioritization is more effective than reward-based prioritization, and that memory gains for the prioritized information is not always as substantial as the memory losses for the unprioritized information.