Involuntary and Voluntary Attention to Competing Working Memory Representations via Peripheral Retro-Cues

Attention shapes the maintenance and retrieval of information in working memory (WM). In external attention, interactions between attentional voluntariness and representational level have been reported, with voluntary and involuntary mechanisms differentially modulating low- and high-level content. In contrast, a study using central retro-cues in WM has found no such interaction. Because central and peripheral cues recruit attention through partially distinct mechanisms, and peripheral cues more effectively elicit automatic orienting, we tested whether peripheral retro-cues alter how attention modulates low- and high-level WM representations. In a preregistered experiment, 100 participants completed two retro-cueing tasks in which peripheral cues directed either voluntary or involuntary attention to perceptual (gray vs. sepia) and semantic (natural vs. artificial) features of real-world stimuli competing in WM. Reaction times and accuracy were analyzed using hierarchical drift-diffusion modeling to dissociate decisional from non-decisional processes. The results revealed the following pattern. First, attentional voluntariness did not differentially influence perceptual versus semantic WM content. Second, drift rates showed reliable retro-cueing effects for both voluntary and involuntary attention; voluntary attention produced larger, primarily cost-driven effects, whereas involuntary attention yielded smaller, predominantly benefit-driven effects. Third, non-decision times showed larger effects (reflecting both benefits and costs) for voluntary attention and smaller, benefit-only effects for involuntary attention. Fourth, in contrast to previous findings with central retro-cues, involuntary attentional modulation of non-decision times was observed. In conclusion, although peripheral retro-cues more effectively recruit involuntary attention, this enhancement does not differentially prioritize perceptual over semantic WM representations, thereby limiting direct analogies between internal and external attention.