Investigating Retrieval Strategies in an Associative Recognition Test in Working Memory: Evidence from Eye Movements

The study examines the retrieval strategies that people engage in during associative recognition in working memory. To this end, we employ eye movements as a tool to track the underlying retrieval processes. Previous work has shown that during retrieval people tend to look back at empty spatial locations where the information was presented at encoding, known as the looking at nothing (LAN) effect. Thus, reflecting which memorandum has been retrieved. In a series of four experiments, we presented participants with four-word pairs at four different locations at encoding. During an immediate retrieval test, they heard two words and were asked to indicate if these two words belonged to the same word pair (positive probe) or not (lure probe). We hypothesized that LAN observed during lure probes will be diagnostic in informing which strategy participants engage in. On the one hand, participants can retrieve a word pair associated with one of the probe words through a pairwise binding. On the other hand, they can retrieve both word pairs based on a parallel comparison to the integrated representation of all the word pairs to perform the task. All experiments provided evidence in favor of a retrieval strategy where they retrieved only one of the word pairs. Additionally, we implemented a measurement model for the timeline of LAN. The onset of the effect is dependent on the inter word interval at retrieval as well as the size and distance between the locations.