Effects of Visual Working Memory Load and Item Priority on Susceptibility to Distraction and Memory Accuracy

Effects of Visual Working Memory Load and Item Priority on Susceptibility to Distraction and Memory Accuracy | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Effects of Visual Working Memory Load and Item Priority on Susceptibility to Distraction and Memory Accuracy Hasan Gunduz, Turan Gunduz, Jan Fockert This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7014182/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 15 Oct, 2025 Read the published version in Psychological Research → Version 1 posted 9 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Visual working memory (VWM) can store multiple items with varying degrees of attentional priority. We investigated how different load and prioritization status of memory items affected both memory precision and distractor resistance. We used a dual-task paradigm in which 48 participants encoded sets of oriented Gabor patches and completed a flanker task during the retention interval. The design varied status of memory items as currently relevant (CR), and future relevant (FR) and their load as one and two across three load conditions using retro-cues. Results showed that increasing CR load reduced distractor interference and memory precision, while increasing FR load had no effect on either measure. Importantly, no consistent advantage was observed for prioritized items in later memory tests, aligning with recent findings that retro-cue benefits can degrade under external attentional demands. These results support a functional dissociation between CR and FR items in VWM and highlight how attentional state—not memory load alone—shapes the functional impact of VWM representations. visual working memory attention distractor interference prioritization Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Introduction Visual Working Memory (VWM) supports goal-directed behavior by enabling the active manipulation and retention of limited amounts of visuospatial information for short periods of time (Baddeley, 2012 ; Luck & Vogel, 2013 ). For example, when you are looking for three different products in a grocery store, you might keep the visual representations of the products in mind to perform your target behavior which is finding these products in store. However, the visual representations of these products in this example may not always have the same priority or importance. When you come to an aisle where one of these three products is on display, the visual representation of that product will be prioritized by means of internal attention to find the exact match. In this case, the attentional focus on the other two visual representations will be weakened. Nevertheless, when needed later, the other visual representations can become prioritized and gain importance again. The status of visual representations is determined by their behavioral relevance to the imminent task (Olivers et al., 2011 ). In the example above, the representation that will soon be important for visual comparison is the one we are looking for in the aisle, while the other representations are less important at that moment but will be used in the future. The first group of these representations is often referred to in the literature as currently relevant (CR) or prioritized memory items, and the second group as future relevant (FR) or unprioritized memory items (see, Lorenc et al., 2020 ; Yu et al., 2020 ). It is argued that prioritized representation receives more resources of internal attention due to its behavioral relevance. Therefore, prioritized representations are also be referred to as attended representations, while future relevant representations are referred to as unattended representations in some studies (e.g., Christophel et al., 2018 ). According to the sensory-recruitment hypothesis visual memory representations are maintained in visual/perceptual areas which are critical for visual perception (Harrison & Tong, 2009 ; Serences et al., 2009 ). Additionally, neuroimaging studies have reported status-dependent differences in the maintenance of visual representations. For example, Lewis-Peacock et al. ( 2012 ) showed that only CR items were associated with an active neural trace, whereas FR-related activity did not persist. This pattern has been interpreted as indicating that the FR items were encoded via short-term synaptic changes rather than persistent neural firing (Stokes, 2015 ). Similarly, Lorenc et al. ( 2020 ) have revealed that only CR items are maintained in visual, parietal, and posterior regions, supporting the idea of activity-silent maintenance of FR items. Christophel et al. ( 2018 ) also revealed that CR items can be decoded from activity in visual, parietal, and frontal areas, whereas FR items can be decoded from activity in parietal and frontal areas, but not from visual areas. They concluded that rather than being activity-silent, parallel and distributed maintenance of representations were possible for FR and CR items and only the CR items can be maintained in the visual cortex (see also, Christophel et al., 2017 ). Rademaker et al. ( 2017 ) also found that transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over visual cortex resulted in disrupted performance only for CR items, and not for FR items. When these studies are evaluated together, it can be argued that while there is no clear consensus on how FR items are maintained, CR representations are maintained by active neural firing in the visual cortex, which allows them to be maintained with high fidelity/precision, but a similar active representation in visual cortex is not the case for FR representations. Given the mutually influential relationships between attention to internal WM representation and attention to external perceptual stimuli (Chun et al., 2011 ; de Fockert et al., 2001 ; Kiyonaga & Egner, 2013 ; Lavie et al., 2004 ), differences in the distribution of internal attention on memory representations, and associated storage area according to prioritization status of them may differentially affect success on external attention tasks. In the case of VWM, the interaction of internal attention and external attention can be linked to the Perceptual Load Theory of Attention (Lavie, 1995 ; Lavie, 2010 ) which argues that if limited perceptual resources are depleted to process goal-relevant stimuli, goal irrelevant stimuli have little or no effect on goal directed behavior. Supporting this view, studies manipulating load of VWM revealed that an increase in load resulted in better distractor rejection (Konstantinou et al., 2014 ; Roper & Vecera 2014 , but see Gunduz & Ozkan Ceylan, 2025 ; Yao et al., 2020 , for inconsistent results). Consistent with the sensory recruitment hypothesis, this pattern can be explained by assuming that maintenance of relevant memory items under increased VWM load leads to a depletion of resources in visual perceptual areas which in turn negatively affects the processing of the low-priority distractor. However, in most of the aforementioned studies focusing on the load effect of VWM on external attention, the status of the representations in VWM was not manipulated. On the other hand, if the active maintenance of representations, reflected in persistent neural activity within perceptual regions, is determined by their status, then the load-related effects of these representations are likely to differ depending on prioritization. Determining whether the way in which VWM load affects distractor interference varies according to representation status may perhaps help to explain the inconsistent findings. Since the active occupation of visual/perceptual resources may vary according to the status of representations, one might argue that the perceptual load effect proposed by load theory may arise only from prioritized (attention-focused) representations, rather than from unprioritized ones. Therefore, the primary aim of this study was to examine the effect of changes in the load of visual memory representations with different prioritization status on a concurrent external attention task. In addition, the study also aims to investigate how status- and load-related differences alter memory acuity in the presence of a concurrently maintained external attention task. The current study addresses these gaps through a dual-task behavioral design that manipulates both the load (1 vs 2 items) and status (CR vs. FR) of VWM representations. By embedding a flanker task during the retention interval, we examine how different configurations of VWM affect distractor interference and memory precision. Critically, this design allows us to dissociate the influence of representational priority from mere memory load, providing novel insights into the cognitive architecture of VWM. We hypothesized that CR items, due to their sensory recruitment and attentional priority, would draw on capacity-limited perceptual resources. Therefore, we expected that increasing CR load would reduce distractor interference (i.e., smaller flanker compatibility effects) but also degrade memory precision (i.e., larger angular error in orientation recall). In contrast, we predicted that increasing FR load would have minimal impact on both flanker interference and memory precision, consistent with the idea that FR items are stored in non-sensory or activity-silent formats that do not compete for perceptual resources. Methods Participants The number of required participants was calculated using G*Power (Faul et al., 2007 ) in accordance with the design. To detect a moderate effect ( η p ² = .06) with a power of .95 and 5% type 1 error rate, the required sample size was calculated as 42. Considering the balancing of the order of presentation of the conditions, data were collected from 48 participants between the ages of 18–35 (7 Male, 41 Female, M age = 21.000 ± 2.552), with no existing neurological or psychological diagnosis, and no vision problems (except for the use of contact lenses or glasses). Data from one participant who made more than 50% errors in the flanker task was replaced with data from a new participant. Participation in the experiment was completely voluntary and informed consent was obtained. Task The task was designed and ran through PsychoPy (Peirce et al., 2019 ), and was similar to the tasks used in studies by Yu et al. ( 2020 ), and Christophel et al. ( 2018 ). Each trial was started by a participant response (pressing the “space” key) to reduce fatigue. After the first fixation “+” display lasting 1000 ms, the stimuli of the memory set were presented. Depending on the condition, two or three Gabor orientations were presented consecutively for 1000 ms each with 1000 ms interstimulus interval between them. These stimuli were randomly selected among 16 different orientations (between 10–170 degrees with 10-degree differences). Participants were asked to memorize these different orientations as much as possible. Full vertical and full horizontal directions were not presented in the memory set as they were considered more likely to be encoded auditory/verbally rather than visually. After the presentation of the orientations, another fixation “+” was presented for 2000 ms, followed by the first retro-cue indicating the presentation order of memory items that participants will be asked a question about on the first memory test. This cue was a number presented in green in the center of the screen for 2000 ms. For example, if this number was “1”, participants knew that a question would soon be asked about the first presented Gabor orientation among the other orientation(s) they had just seen in the memory set. This cued memory representation was considered as a CR item and the other(s) became FR items. Each of the stimuli in the memory set was presented on consecutive displays to ensure a clearer allocation of attentional resources for each stimulus and to eliminate the difference in the width of the attentional window between the load conditions, which may occur due to the presentation of different numbers of stimuli on the same screen and which has been reported to have a significant effect on the attentional task (Lee & Jeong, 2020 ). Following this first cue, three flanker tasks were presented consecutively to measure the effect of the type and number of representations in VWM on external attention. In this task, based on the response competition paradigm which was developed by Eriksen and Eriksen ( 1974 ), a screen with “O ‘s” and the letter “X” or “Z” was presented for 200 ms in a circular arrangement. Participants were expected to identify as quickly as possible the target letter, which was either “X” or “Z”, and participants were asked to respond by pressing the “1” labeled “X” for the target “X” and the “2” labeled “Z” for the target “Z” until the end of the flanker response screen indicated with “?” lasting 1800 ms. Outside this target area (left or right outside of the circle of letters) a distractor was presented which was either “X” and “Z” and which participants were instructed to ignore it as much as possible. Participants had 2000 ms to react to the flanker task (200 ms flanker display + 1800 ms response display). Trials in which the target letter and the distractor letter were the same (both “X” or “Z”) constituted congruent trials, whereas trials in which they were different (target “X” with distractor “Z” or vice versa) constituted incongruent trials. For each of the first, second or third flanker tasks, the probability of the target letter being “X” or “Z”, the probability of the distractor being “X” or “Z”, the probability of the target being presented in any of the six positions, the probability of the distractor being presented on the left or right, and the probability of a congruent or incongruent trial were all equal. After performing three consecutive flanker tasks, memory for the orientation indicated by the first retro-cue was tested in the first memory test. In this phase, participants were presented with a vertical Gabor orientation and were asked to recreate the cued memory representation by rotating this Gabor to the right or left. Participants used the “8” key labeled with a left arrow to turn it to the left and the “9” key labeled with a right arrow to turn it to the right. Each key press made a difference of 10 degrees in the orientation of the Gabor. Participants were asked to take their time when making this memory decision and the decision process ended only when participants confirmed the decision by pressing the “0” labeled with “OK”. After this memory decision, a second retro-cue was presented for 2000 ms and after another memory interval of 1000 ms, the second memory test was performed. The second cued memory representation was the same as the first cued one on half of the trials (stay condition) and different on the other half (switch condition). This different cue was a retro-cue pointing to (one of) the previously un-cued (FR) items. The second cue was presented in blue if it was a switch trial and in green if it was a stay trial. For the second memory test, participants made a decision as in the first memory test, this time rotating a horizontal Gabor orientation stimulus. Following this decision, the trial ended, and the next trial started when participants pressed the “space” key. There were three different load conditions: i) Currently Relevant Load − 1, and Future Relevant Load − 1 (1C-1F), ii) Currently Relevant Load – 2 and Future Relevant Load − 1 (2C-1F), Currently Relevant Load – 1, and Future Relevant Load – 2 (1C-2F). A total of 24 trials (with 72 flankers) were presented for each load condition. The proportions of stay and switch conditions were kept at 50% in all three conditions. An example of a trial in the 1C-1F condition is illustrated in Fig. 1 . In the 1C-1F condition, with a rate of 50%, one of the two memory items was the first-cued item, while the other was the item cued in the switch trials of the second memory test. In the 1C-2F condition, the probability that the first retro-cue indicated each of the three memory representations was equal (1/3). In the switch trials, the probability that the second retro-cue indicated one of the two remaining future-relevant (FR) items was also equal (50%). In the 2C-1F condition, the first retro-cue indicated two memory items using one of three possible cue combinations (1–2, 1–3, or 2–3), each presented with equal probability (1/3). Which of the two items was probed was then specified by a number shown at the bottom of the memory test display (these numerical indicators were used in all three conditions and during both memory tests). For stay trials in the second memory test, the second retro-cue always indicated the item that had been tested in the first memory test; for switch trials, it indicated the remaining FR item. Procedure and Statistical Approach The study received ethical approval from the university board (No: 1228365) and was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Before starting the experiment, informed consent was obtained from the participants. The participant was then presented with a short version of the actual experiment (a version consisting of six trials in each condition) to familiarize the participant with the task. This practice section lasted approximately 10 minutes. In the main task, it took approximately 12 minutes to complete condition 1C-1F and 13 minutes to complete each condition 2C-1F and 1C-2F. During the task, two resting periods of maximally 3 minutes each were added between the three conditions. Complete participation took approximately 1 hour for each participant. All analyses were run through JASP (JASP Team, 2024 ). A factorial ANOVA design with 2 (Memory Test: First and Second) x 2 (Test Type: Stay and Switch) x 3 (Condition: 1C-1F, 2C-1F and 1C-2F) repeated measures was used to examine memory performance. The dependent variable for this analysis was the memory accuracy variable. Memory accuracy was determined as the mean of the angular difference between the orientation of the memory item asked of the participant and the orientation recreated by the participant. A decrease in this difference will correspond to an increase in memory accuracy. The role of representational status and load on the flanker performance effect was examined using a 2 (Congruency: Congruent and Incongruent) x 3 (Condition: 1C-1F, 2C-1F and 1C-2F) repeated measures factorial ANOVA design. The dependent variables for this analysis were flanker task error percentage and mean reaction time for correct flanker trials. Reaction times that were not within 3.29 standard deviations of the mean RT (0.1% of distribution) of participants in any condition were removed from the reaction time analysis. It is worth emphasizing that we used continuous-report decisions for testing memory accuracy rather than binary (correct/incorrect) decisions. Therefore, our memory test made “correctness” a matter of precision rather than categorical accuracy. The main reason why this was preferred was that small angular memory precision differences can also be clearly detected and the probability of a correct decision due to chance can be reduced. Previous studies of the interaction of memory load and attention have generally analyzed attentional performance on attentional task trials involving correct memory decisions to make sure that representations have been maintained in memory. However, applying this approach to our task would lead to extensive data loss, especially given that the definition of “correct” (zero-degree error) was met on only ~ 25% of first memory test trials. Moreover, given the inconsistent literature (e.g., Gresch et al., 2021 ; Hautekiet et al., 2025 ) on memory performance for prioritized or unprioritized representations (in particular, findings showing that prioritization does not always lead to better performance especially if there is an external stimulus in the retention interval), we thought that artificially selecting only high-precision trials may unintentionally mask or misrepresent the functional role of different types of memory representations. Therefore, we analyzed the full dataset without filtering any trials with certain memory precision. This approach maximizes statistical power and ensures that flanker congruency was balanced across experimental conditions. Importantly, most trials (~ 70%) had an angular difference within 30° in any condition, indicating that participants were likely engaging with the correct memory content, even when performance was not perfect. We believe this inclusive strategy provides a more ecologically valid and statistically sound basis for assessing distractor interference during VWM retention, especially given the continuous nature of our memory measure and the dual-memory structure of the task. Results Visual Working Memory Performance VWM performance of the participants was examined with a 3 (Condition: 1C-1F, 2C-1F and 1C-2F) x 2 (Memory Test: First and Second) x 2 (Test Type: Stay and Switch) ANOVA for repeated measures on the mean angular differences. According to the results, the main effect of Condition was significant ( F (2, 94) = 3.712, p = .028, η p ² = .073). Bonferroni corrected pairwise comparisons indicated that the mean angular difference under the 2C-1F condition was greatest and statistically different from the difference under the 1C-1F condition ( MD = 2.444, SE = 0.909, p = .025) and there was no statistical difference between other conditions. The main effect of Memory Test was also significant ( F (1, 47) = 39.347, p < .001, η p ² = .456) and showed that the mean angular difference was lower at the first memory test ( MD = 2.888, SE = 0.460). On the other hand, although the angular difference was higher for stay condition, the main effect of Test Type did not reach significance ( F (1, 47) = 2.930, p = .094, η p ² = .059). The two-way interaction between Condition and Memory Test was significant ( F (2, 94) = 3.174, p = .046, η p ² = .063). Bonferroni corrected pairwise comparisons showed that the pattern of main Memory Test effect (First < Second) was observed under both 1C-1F ( MD = -4.219, SE = 0.775, p < .001) and 1C-2F ( MD = -2.943, SE = 0.775, p = .003) conditions but not observed under 2C-1F condition ( MD = -1.502, SE = 0.775, p = .818). It was also observed that whereas there was no difference between any conditions at second memory test, at the first memory test the mean angular difference was smallest under the 1C-1F condition, and this was statistically lower than the difference under 2C-1F ( MD = 3.802, SE = 1.057, p = .007). There were no differences between the other conditions at the first memory test (Fig. 2 ). The interaction between Condition and Test Type was also significant ( F (2, 94) = 4.441, p = .014, η p ² = .086). According to Bonferroni corrected pairwise comparisons, the difference between Stay and Switch conditions was marginally significant only under the 1C-1F condition ( MD = 2.604, SE = 0.890, p = .060) showing that the angular difference was greater in the Stay condition. While there was no difference between any two conditions in the Stay condition, there was a marginally significant difference between the 1C-1F and 2C-1F condition in the Switch condition ( MD = 3.142, SE = 1.091, p = .068) which showed that the mean angular difference was greater in 2C-1F condition. On the other hand, the interaction between Memory Test and Test Type ( F (1, 47) = 0.533, p = .469, η p ² = .011) and three-way interaction ( F (2, 94) = 0.352, p = .705, η p ² = .007) were not significant. Flanker Performance Error Rates Mean error rates on the flanker task were analyzed by 3 (Condition: 1C-1F, 2C-1F, and 1C-2F) x 2 (Congruency: Congruent, and Incongruent) factorial ANOVA for repeated measures. Since the sphericity assumption was violated for the Condition variable (χ²(2) = 7.010, p = .030), Huynh-Feldt correction (ε = .907) was used for the degrees of freedom in related effects and reported accordingly. The main effect of Condition was not significant ( F (1.81, 85.29) = 1.571, p = .215, η p ² = .032) which indicated that there was no difference between conditions in terms of error rates. The main effect of Congruency was significant ( F (1, 47) = 20.238, p < .001, η p ² = .301) and showed that mean error rate in the congruent condition was lower than in the incongruent condition ( MD = 2.009, SE = 0.447, p < .001). The interaction between Condition and Congruency was not significant ( F (1.89, 89.03) = 0.362, p = .686, η p ² = .008) which indicated that the error rate difference between congruent and incongruent conditions was similar for each level of the Condition variable. Reaction Times (RT) Reaction times on correct flanker trials were analyzed by a 3 (Condition: 1C-1F, 2C-1F, and 1C-2F) x 2 (Congruency: Congruent and Incongruent) factorial ANOVA for repeated measures. The main effect of Condition was not significant ( F (2, 94) = 2.317, p = .104, η p ² = .047) showing that mean RTs were similar in all conditions. The main effect of Congruency was significant ( F (1, 47) = 91.728, p < .001, η p ² = .661). According to this significant main effect, RTs to targets in congruent trials were faster than in incongruent trials ( MD = 44.885, SE = 4.687). Importantly, the interaction between Condition and Congruency was also significant ( F (2, 94) = 5.889, p = .004, η p ² = .111). Bonferroni corrected pairwise comparisons revealed that significant congruency effects were observed in all conditions (for 1C-1F condition: MD = 57.131, SE = 7.182, p < .001; for 2C-1F condition: MD = 26.547, SE = 7.182, p = .005; for 1C-2F condition: MD = 50.977, SE = 7.182, p < .001). Further Bonferroni corrected pairwise comparisons of the congruency effects in the different levels of the Condition factor revealed that the congruency effect was significantly smaller in the 2C-1F condition compared to the 1C-1F ( t = 3.244, p = .005) and the 1C-2F condition ( t = 2.591, p = .033). Congruency effects were not significantly different in the 1C-1F and 1C-2F conditions ( t = 0.653, p = 1.000; Fig. 3 ). Discussion In the current study, we aimed to investigate how distractor rejection in selective attention and memory acuity were influenced by representational status and load of visual working memory (VWM) content. To this end, we manipulated the representational status of memory items as currently relevant (CR) and future relevant (FR), and their load as 1 and 2 item(s). First of all, it is necessary to discuss whether differences in the status of memory representations are reflected in memory accuracy. Although memory performance during the first memory test in which only CR items were tested was better than the second memory test in which both CR and FR were tested, this difference may not have solely reflected a status effect. It might have also reflected the difference in time of testing. Since both representation status had the same probability of being tested and the same testing time, the second memory test performance was better to examine the behavioral consequences of cue-dependent prioritization. According to the results, no significant difference was found between switch or stay items in this second memory test phase. At first glance, this may seem to undermine the efficacy of retro-cue-based prioritization; recent studies suggest that such null effects are not only plausible but theoretically grounded. For instance, Gresch et al ( 2021 ) demonstrated that internal attentional prioritization does not always provide benefits (e.g., retro-cueing) particularly when concurrent tasks demand external attention. In our study, presenting concurrent flanker tasks may have reduced the effectiveness of the retro-cues and potentially explain the comparable performance between switch and stay conditions. Further supporting evidence on the inconsistency of a prioritization benefit was provided by Hautekiet et al. ( 2025 ) who reported that retro-cueing does not consistently shield memory representations from interference. Additionally, Lout et al. (2023) highlight that actively used or updated memory representations may indeed be more vulnerable to distraction than passively stored ones. These findings align with our results, suggesting that the interaction between external interference and internal prioritization is dynamic, and being prioritized does not necessarily confer robustness in memory, especially when attentional resources are allocated elsewhere. Another key finding was that first memory test performance declined significantly when the load CR items increased from one to two (1C1F → 2C1F) but did not decline when the load of FR items increased (1C1F → 1C2F). This selective load effect suggests that it is not the total amount of information stored in working memory that impairs performance, but rather the number of items prioritized for immediate use. Increased CR load likely leads to competition for representational fidelity within the associated perceptual systems, reducing the precision with which each item can be stored and recalled. In contrast, FR items may be stored in a different format or location, such as activity-silent states or higher-order brain regions (e.g., parietal cortex), which may be functionally insulated from the sensory-perceptual resources required for CR maintenance. These findings are consistent with recent findings (e.g., Christophel et al., 2018 ; Yu et al., 2020 ) suggesting that CR and FR items occupy different representational states in the brain, with only CR items engaging sustained activity in the visual cortex. As such, only CR load taxes the perceptual-attentional system, making it a stronger predictor of distractor resistance and memory precision during initial retrieval. This would explain why increasing the number of FR items did not impose the same performance cost during the first memory test, which specifically targeted CR items. Turning to the flanker task results, we found that distractor interference was significantly reduced only in the 2C-1F condition. In both 1C-1F and 1C-2F conditions, interference was greater and statistically equivalent. The finding that only CR load reduced distractor interference can indicate that this type of load engages perceptual systems more directly, likely through sustained activity in the visual cortex. FR load, however, did not affect distractor interference regardless of its level of load, supporting the conclusion that future relevant items are not stored in perceptually active formats. This pattern of interaction between VWM and distractor rejection also supports the core prediction of perceptual load theory, proposing that when perceptual resources are consumed by target-related stimuli in an attention task or by concurrent active VWM representations, the processing of irrelevant stimuli is reduced (Gunduz et al., 2022 ; Lavie, 2010 ). However, in addition to supporting evidence that increasing VWM load resulted in reduced perceptual processing of distractors (Konstantinou et al., 2014 ; Roper & Vecera, 2014 ), there are also several studies reporting no attentional modulation effect as a function of load on VWM (Gunduz & Ozkan Ceylan., 2025; Lee & Jeong, 2020 ; Yao et al., 2020 ) or a reverse effect (Zhang & Luck, 2015 ). Our status-dependent results may help to explain some of these inconsistencies by challenging the assumption that overall memory load modulates perceptual interference and suggest instead that the attentional priority status of representations determines their impact on distractor processing. This perspective offers a valuable framework for interpreting previous studies that reported inconsistent effects of VWM load on distractor interference. Many of the studies mentioned above compared low (e.g., 1-item) and high (e.g., 4-item) memory loads without manipulating prioritization level. In such designs, all items are equally likely to be tested and thus maintained with equal task relevance. However, because attention must be divided across multiple items in the high load condition, each item may receive only a fraction of internal attention. As a result, even though the total attentional effort may be high, the per-item attentional allocation may be insufficient to robustly engage perceptual resources needed for distractor suppression. In contrast, a single-item low-load condition may produce a highly prioritized and perceptually active representation, despite the overall memory load being low. This could explain why some studies have paradoxically observed a similar or even greater level of distractor interference under high VWM load. The inconsistency across these findings may also reflect individual differences in encoding strategy or strategic flexibility, particularly in the absence of explicit cues. In our study, prioritization was experimentally controlled, revealing that only CR items—those most likely to be tested—engaged the perceptual system enough to reduce external interference. This suggests that it is not simply the quantity of memory items, but the quality and priority of the representations that determines their interaction with selective attention mechanisms. Nevertheless, future studies aiming to directly test our proposed inference for these inconsistent findings are needed. Altogether, our findings emphasize the need for future research to move beyond simple memory load comparisons and instead account for how attentional resources are distributed across memory items. Moreover, our results supported recent theoretical accounts showing that retro-cued representations are not always of better quality and robustness than un-cued representations especially under conditions that tax external attention. We also provided indirect evidence that the brain areas or patterns of activation that are critical for the maintenance of these two types of representation might indeed be different. Together, our findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the shared and competitive nature of internal and external attention, delineating the boundaries of retro-cue efficacy and the contextual dynamics of memory prioritization in complex tasks. While our study offers important insights into the interaction between internal prioritization and external attention demands, several limitations should be noted. First, we did not include neuroimaging or electrophysiological measures, which meant we could not directly assess whether CR and FR items were stored in distinct neural states. Second, our conclusions about the effectiveness of prioritization are drawn from behavioral data alone, and although there are some findings that are in line with ours, the lack of significant differences between stay and switch trials in the second memory test limits how confidently we can interpret prioritization success under distraction. Third limitation is the absence of a no-distraction control condition, which would have allowed clearer attribution of performance changes specifically to the flanker task. Another limitation, the use of only Gabor stimuli and a letter-based response competition task enhances internal validity but may constrain the generalizability of the findings to other status of memory representations or real-world multitasking contexts. These factors should be addressed in future research to strengthen and extend the current findings. Declarations Author Contributions: Conceptualization: Hasan Gunduz; Methodology: Hasan Gunduz; Formal analysis and investigation: Hasan Gunduz, Turan Gunduz; Writing - original draft preparation: Hasan Gunduz, Turan Gunduz; Writing - review and editing: Hasan Gunduz, Turan Gunduz, Jan de Fockert, Supervision: Jan de Fockert. Conflict of interest: The authors report no conflict of interest. Funding: No funding was received for conducting this study. Data availability: Data are available at the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/f6sd5/?view_only=8f3c7a39b2824c08b63ad15329ce0271 References Baddeley, A. (2012). Working memory: Theories, models, and controversies. Annual Review of Psychology , 63 (1), 1-29. Christophel, T. B., Iamshchinina, P., Yan, C., Allefeld, C., & Haynes, J. D. (2018). Cortical specialization for attended versus unattended working memory. Nature Neuroscience , 21 (4), 494-496. Christophel, T. B., Klink, P. C., Spitzer, B., Roelfsema, P. R., & Haynes, J. D. (2017). The distributed nature of working memory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences , 21 (2), 111-124. Chun, M. M., Golomb, J. D., & Turk-Browne, N. B. (2011). A taxonomy of external and internal attention. Annual Review of Psychology , 62 (1), 73-101. de Fockert, J. W., Rees, G., Frith, C. D., & Lavie, N. (2001). The role of working memory in visual selective attention. Science , 291 (5509), 1803-1806 Eriksen, B. A., & Eriksen, C. W. (1974). Effects of noise letters upon the identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task. Perception & Psychophysics , 16 (1), 143-149. Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Lang, A. G., & Buchner, A. (2007). G* Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods , 39 (2), 175-191. Gresch, D., Boettcher, S. E., Van Ede, F., & Nobre, A. C. (2021). Shielding working-memory representations from temporally predictable external interference. Cognition , 217 , 104915. Gunduz, H. & Ozkan Ceylan, A. (2025). Load effect of visual working memory on distractor interference: An investigation with two replication experiments. Memory & Cognition 53 , 832–852 . https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-024-01610-y Gunduz, H., Gunduz, T., & Ozkan Ceylan, A. (2022). High bladder pressure reduces the ability to filter out interference from distractors in low perceptual load condition. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology , 75 (12), 2219-2231. Harrison, S. A., & Tong, F. (2009). Decoding reveals the contents of visual working memory in early visual areas. Nature , 458 (7238), 632-635. Hautekiet, C., Niklaus, M., & Oberauer, K. (2025). Susceptibility to visual interference in working memory: Different results depending on the prioritization mode?. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance . 1 (6), 791–807. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0001315 JASP Team (2024). JASP (Version 0.18.3)[Computer software]. Kiyonaga, A., & Egner, T. (2013). Working memory as internal attention: Toward an integrative account of internal and external selection processes. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review , 20 , 228-242. Konstantinou, N., Beal, E., King, J. R., & Lavie, N. (2014). Working memory load and distraction: dissociable effects of visual maintenance and cognitive control. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics , 76 , 1985-1997. Lavie, N. (1995). Perceptual load as a necessary condition for selective attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance , 21 (3), 451-468 Lavie, N. (2010). Attention, distraction, and cognitive control under load. Current Directions in Psychological Science , 19 (3), 143-148. Lavie, N., Hirst, A., De Fockert, J. W., & Viding, E. (2004). Load theory of selective attention and cognitive control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General , 133 (3), 339-354. Lee, H., & Jeong, S. K. (2020). Separating the effects of visual working memory load and attentional zoom on selective attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance , 46 (5), 502- 511. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000730 Lewis-Peacock, J. A., Drysdale, A. T., Oberauer, K., & Postle, B. R. (2012). Neural evidence for a distinction between short-term memory and the focus of attention. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience , 24 (1), 61-79. Lorenc, E. S., Vandenbroucke, A. R., Nee, D. E., de Lange, F. P., & D’Esposito, M. (2020). Dissociable neural mechanisms underlie currently-relevant, future-relevant, and discarded working memory representations. Scientific Reports , 10 (1), 11195. Lout, E., Golomb, J., & Dube, B. (2023, November 29). Items in visual working memory are more susceptible to visual interference while in-use. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/28xds, Luck, S. J., & Vogel, E. K. (2013). Visual working memory capacity: from psychophysics and neurobiology to individual differences. Trends in Cognitive Sciences , 17 (8), 391-400. Olivers, C. N., Peters, J., Houtkamp, R., & Roelfsema, P. R. (2011). Different states in visual working memory: When it guides attention and when it does not. Trends in Cognitive Sciences , 15 (7), 327-334. Peirce, J., Gray, J. R., Simpson, S., MacAskill, M., Höchenberger, R., Sogo, H., ... & Lindeløv, J. K. (2019). PsychoPy2: Experiments in behavior made easy. Behavior Research Methods , 51 , 195-203. Rademaker, R. L., van de Ven, V. G., Tong, F., & Sack, A. T. (2017). The impact of early visual cortex transcranial magnetic stimulation on visual working memory precision and guess rate. PloS One , 12 (4), e0175230. Roper, Z. J., & Vecera, S. P. (2014). Visual short-term memory load strengthens selective attention. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review , 21 , 549-556. Serences, J. T., Ester, E. F., Vogel, E. K., & Awh, E. (2009). Stimulus-specific delay activity in human primary visual cortex. Psychological Science , 20 (2), 207-214. Stokes, M. G. (2015). ‘Activity-silent’working memory in prefrontal cortex: a dynamic coding framework. Trends in Cognitive Sciences , 19 (7), 394-405 Yao, N., Guo, Y., Liu, Y., Shen, M., & Gao, Z. (2020). Visual working-memory capacity load does not modulate distractor processing. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics , 82 , 3291-3313. Yu, Q., Teng, C., & Postle, B. R. (2020). Different states of priority recruit different neural representations in visual working memory. PLoS Biology , 18 (6), e3000769. Zhang, W., & Luck, S. J. (2015). Opposite effects of capacity load and resolution load on distractor processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance , 41 (1), 22–27. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000013 Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 15 Oct, 2025 Read the published version in Psychological Research → Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 01 Aug, 2025 Reviews received at journal 24 Jul, 2025 Reviews received at journal 23 Jul, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 03 Jul, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 02 Jul, 2025 Reviewers invited by journal 02 Jul, 2025 Editor assigned by journal 01 Jul, 2025 Submission checks completed at journal 30 Jun, 2025 First submitted to journal 30 Jun, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-7014182","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":480049471,"identity":"c4a6f016-93f6-4bc0-8a1e-446c0eec6d52","order_by":0,"name":"Hasan Gunduz","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAxUlEQVRIiWNgGAWjYBACAxDBw8AgB+GykaDFGKKaDcwhTktiA9FazPnXmD1421aX3j+/x4DhQ9lhBnvpA/i1WM54Y244t40td8YxHgPGGecOM/DwJRBw2I0zZtK8bTy5DUAtzLxtQC2EXAbVIpEuD9Lylygt53tAWgwSDEBaGImzha1Mcs65BMONx9IKDvacS+fhOUPQlsPbJN6U1cnLHT688cGPMms59h4CWhgkEhDsAwxERAsDA/8BwmpGwSgYBaNghAMA2IY7kkzSefcAAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"","institution":"Adana Alparslan Türkeş Science and Technology University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Hasan","middleName":"","lastName":"Gunduz","suffix":""},{"id":480049472,"identity":"cd56c540-9350-42dc-9796-e5a5c23abff6","order_by":1,"name":"Turan Gunduz","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Akdeniz University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Turan","middleName":"","lastName":"Gunduz","suffix":""},{"id":480049474,"identity":"c9ef0485-19f6-466e-b410-4501d1d94e18","order_by":2,"name":"Jan Fockert","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Goldsmiths University of London","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Jan","middleName":"","lastName":"Fockert","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-06-30 21:23:09","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7014182/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-7014182/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[{"content":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-025-02185-2","type":"published","date":"2025-10-15T15:57:16+00:00"}],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":86138900,"identity":"4449e041-740e-4064-879c-f3533fccae2a","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-07-07 08:09:21","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":66004,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eTask Flow Under the Condition of 1C-1F\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote. \u003c/em\u003eThe numbers below the screens show the presentation times in ms. UtR stands for “up to response”.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7014182/v1/9e1e43f2dde909acf5ed4dc6.png"},{"id":86138899,"identity":"35b63a4e-6cf9-4eac-9fd7-c6a4ec662415","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-07-07 08:09:21","extension":"png","order_by":2,"title":"Figure 2","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":104265,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMean Angular Difference as a Function of Condition and Memory Test\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote. \u003c/em\u003eError bars indicate standard error of the mean.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage2.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7014182/v1/ffd240fbc481f4ca57befaf9.png"},{"id":86138891,"identity":"874b553d-2c17-44d0-94c5-231af2d7eaa4","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-07-07 08:09:19","extension":"png","order_by":3,"title":"Figure 3","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":92770,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMean Congruency Effect as a Function of Condition\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote. \u003c/em\u003eError bars indicate standard errors of the mean.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage3.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7014182/v1/6be7bfc7029b7bf0f0c9530b.png"},{"id":93955957,"identity":"c775287a-9933-4e92-950d-c90d62445e76","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-10-20 16:08:05","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":782659,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7014182/v1/1690bfb6-7f97-4468-9df9-d678cf1f1002.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Effects of Visual Working Memory Load and Item Priority on Susceptibility to Distraction and Memory Accuracy","fulltext":[{"header":"Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003eVisual Working Memory (VWM) supports goal-directed behavior by enabling the active manipulation and retention of limited amounts of visuospatial information for short periods of time (Baddeley, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e; Luck \u0026amp; Vogel, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e). For example, when you are looking for three different products in a grocery store, you might keep the visual representations of the products in mind to perform your target behavior which is finding these products in store. However, the visual representations of these products in this example may not always have the same priority or importance. When you come to an aisle where one of these three products is on display, the visual representation of that product will be prioritized by means of internal attention to find the exact match. In this case, the attentional focus on the other two visual representations will be weakened. Nevertheless, when needed later, the other visual representations can become prioritized and gain importance again.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe status of visual representations is determined by their behavioral relevance to the imminent task (Olivers et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e). In the example above, the representation that will soon be important for visual comparison is the one we are looking for in the aisle, while the other representations are less important at that moment but will be used in the future. The first group of these representations is often referred to in the literature as \u003cem\u003ecurrently relevant (CR) or prioritized\u003c/em\u003e memory items, and the second group as \u003cem\u003efuture relevant (FR) or unprioritized\u003c/em\u003e memory items (see, Lorenc et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Yu et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). It is argued that prioritized representation receives more resources of internal attention due to its behavioral relevance. Therefore, prioritized representations are also be referred to as \u003cem\u003eattended\u003c/em\u003e representations, while future relevant representations are referred to as \u003cem\u003eunattended\u003c/em\u003e representations in some studies (e.g., Christophel et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAccording to the sensory-recruitment hypothesis visual memory representations are maintained in visual/perceptual areas which are critical for visual perception (Harrison \u0026amp; Tong, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e; Serences et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e). Additionally, neuroimaging studies have reported status-dependent differences in the maintenance of visual representations. For example, Lewis-Peacock et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e) showed that only CR items were associated with an active neural trace, whereas FR-related activity did not persist. This pattern has been interpreted as indicating that the FR items were encoded via short-term synaptic changes rather than persistent neural firing (Stokes, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). Similarly, Lorenc et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e) have revealed that only CR items are maintained in visual, parietal, and posterior regions, supporting the idea of activity-silent maintenance of FR items. Christophel et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e) also revealed that CR items can be decoded from activity in visual, parietal, and frontal areas, whereas FR items can be decoded from activity in parietal and frontal areas, but not from visual areas. They concluded that rather than being activity-silent, parallel and distributed maintenance of representations were possible for FR and CR items and only the CR items can be maintained in the visual cortex (see also, Christophel et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e). Rademaker et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e) also found that transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over visual cortex resulted in disrupted performance only for CR items, and not for FR items. When these studies are evaluated together, it can be argued that while there is no clear consensus on how FR items are maintained, CR representations are maintained by active neural firing in the visual cortex, which allows them to be maintained with high fidelity/precision, but a similar active representation in visual cortex is not the case for FR representations.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eGiven the mutually influential relationships between attention to internal WM representation and attention to external perceptual stimuli (Chun et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e; de Fockert et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2001\u003c/span\u003e; Kiyonaga \u0026amp; Egner, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e; Lavie et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e), differences in the distribution of internal attention on memory representations, and associated storage area according to prioritization status of them may differentially affect success on external attention tasks. In the case of VWM, the interaction of internal attention and external attention can be linked to the \u003cem\u003ePerceptual Load Theory of Attention\u003c/em\u003e (Lavie, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1995\u003c/span\u003e; Lavie, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e) which argues that if limited perceptual resources are depleted to process goal-relevant stimuli, goal irrelevant stimuli have little or no effect on goal directed behavior. Supporting this view, studies manipulating load of VWM revealed that an increase in load resulted in better distractor rejection (Konstantinou et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Roper \u0026amp; Vecera \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e, but see Gunduz \u0026amp; Ozkan Ceylan, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e; Yao et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e, for inconsistent results). Consistent with the sensory recruitment hypothesis, this pattern can be explained by assuming that maintenance of relevant memory items under increased VWM load leads to a depletion of resources in visual perceptual areas which in turn negatively affects the processing of the low-priority distractor.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eHowever, in most of the aforementioned studies focusing on the load effect of VWM on external attention, the status of the representations in VWM was not manipulated. On the other hand, if the active maintenance of representations, reflected in persistent neural activity within perceptual regions, is determined by their status, then the load-related effects of these representations are likely to differ depending on prioritization. Determining whether the way in which VWM load affects distractor interference varies according to representation status may perhaps help to explain the inconsistent findings.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSince the active occupation of visual/perceptual resources may vary according to the status of representations, one might argue that the perceptual load effect proposed by load theory may arise only from prioritized (attention-focused) representations, rather than from unprioritized ones. Therefore, the primary aim of this study was to examine the effect of changes in the load of visual memory representations with different prioritization status on a concurrent external attention task. In addition, the study also aims to investigate how status- and load-related differences alter memory acuity in the presence of a concurrently maintained external attention task.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe current study addresses these gaps through a dual-task behavioral design that manipulates both the load (1 vs 2 items) and status (CR vs. FR) of VWM representations. By embedding a flanker task during the retention interval, we examine how different configurations of VWM affect distractor interference and memory precision. Critically, this design allows us to dissociate the influence of representational priority from mere memory load, providing novel insights into the cognitive architecture of VWM.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe hypothesized that CR items, due to their sensory recruitment and attentional priority, would draw on capacity-limited perceptual resources. Therefore, we expected that increasing CR load would reduce distractor interference (i.e., smaller flanker compatibility effects) but also degrade memory precision (i.e., larger angular error in orientation recall). In contrast, we predicted that increasing FR load would have minimal impact on both flanker interference and memory precision, consistent with the idea that FR items are stored in non-sensory or activity-silent formats that do not compete for perceptual resources.\u003c/p\u003e "},{"header":"Methods","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eParticipants\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe number of required participants was calculated using G*Power (Faul et al., \u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e) in accordance with the design. To detect a moderate effect (\u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026sup2;\u003c/em\u003e = .06) with a power of .95 and 5% type 1 error rate, the required sample size was calculated as 42. Considering the balancing of the order of presentation of the conditions, data were collected from 48 participants between the ages of 18\u0026ndash;35 (7 Male, 41 Female, \u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003eage\u003c/sub\u003e = 21.000\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;2.552), with no existing neurological or psychological diagnosis, and no vision problems (except for the use of contact lenses or glasses). Data from one participant who made more than 50% errors in the flanker task was replaced with data from a new participant. Participation in the experiment was completely voluntary and informed consent was obtained.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTask\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe task was designed and ran through PsychoPy (Peirce et al., \u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e), and was similar to the tasks used in studies by Yu et al. (\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e), and Christophel et al. (\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e). Each trial was started by a participant response (pressing the \u0026ldquo;space\u0026rdquo; key) to reduce fatigue. After the first fixation \u0026ldquo;+\u0026rdquo; display lasting 1000 ms, the stimuli of the memory set were presented. Depending on the condition, two or three Gabor orientations were presented consecutively for 1000 ms each with 1000 ms interstimulus interval between them. These stimuli were randomly selected among 16 different orientations (between 10\u0026ndash;170 degrees with 10-degree differences). Participants were asked to memorize these different orientations as much as possible. Full vertical and full horizontal directions were not presented in the memory set as they were considered more likely to be encoded auditory/verbally rather than visually.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter the presentation of the orientations, another fixation \u0026ldquo;+\u0026rdquo; was presented for 2000 ms, followed by the first retro-cue indicating the presentation order of memory items that participants will be asked a question about on the first memory test. This cue was a number presented in green in the center of the screen for 2000 ms. For example, if this number was \u0026ldquo;1\u0026rdquo;, participants knew that a question would soon be asked about the \u003cem\u003efirst\u003c/em\u003e presented Gabor orientation among the other orientation(s) they had just seen in the memory set. This cued memory representation was considered as a CR item and the other(s) became FR items. Each of the stimuli in the memory set was presented on consecutive displays to ensure a clearer allocation of attentional resources for each stimulus and to eliminate the difference in the width of the attentional window between the load conditions, which may occur due to the presentation of different numbers of stimuli on the same screen and which has been reported to have a significant effect on the attentional task (Lee \u0026amp; Jeong, \u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFollowing this first cue, three flanker tasks were presented consecutively to measure the effect of the type and number of representations in VWM on external attention. In this task, based on the response competition paradigm which was developed by Eriksen and Eriksen (\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1974\u003c/span\u003e), a screen with \u0026ldquo;O \u0026lsquo;s\u0026rdquo; and the letter \u0026ldquo;X\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;Z\u0026rdquo; was presented for 200 ms in a circular arrangement. Participants were expected to identify as quickly as possible the target letter, which was either \u0026ldquo;X\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;Z\u0026rdquo;, and participants were asked to respond by pressing the \u0026ldquo;1\u0026rdquo; labeled \u0026ldquo;X\u0026rdquo; for the target \u0026ldquo;X\u0026rdquo; and the \u0026ldquo;2\u0026rdquo; labeled \u0026ldquo;Z\u0026rdquo; for the target \u0026ldquo;Z\u0026rdquo; until the end of the flanker response screen indicated with \u0026ldquo;?\u0026rdquo; lasting 1800 ms. Outside this target area (left or right outside of the circle of letters) a distractor was presented which was either \u0026ldquo;X\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Z\u0026rdquo; and which participants were instructed to ignore it as much as possible. Participants had 2000 ms to react to the flanker task (200 ms flanker display\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;1800 ms response display). Trials in which the target letter and the distractor letter were the same (both \u0026ldquo;X\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;Z\u0026rdquo;) constituted congruent trials, whereas trials in which they were different (target \u0026ldquo;X\u0026rdquo; with distractor \u0026ldquo;Z\u0026rdquo; or vice versa) constituted incongruent trials. For each of the first, second or third flanker tasks, the probability of the target letter being \u0026ldquo;X\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;Z\u0026rdquo;, the probability of the distractor being \u0026ldquo;X\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;Z\u0026rdquo;, the probability of the target being presented in any of the six positions, the probability of the distractor being presented on the left or right, and the probability of a congruent or incongruent trial were all equal.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter performing three consecutive flanker tasks, memory for the orientation indicated by the first retro-cue was tested in the first memory test. In this phase, participants were presented with a vertical Gabor orientation and were asked to recreate the cued memory representation by rotating this Gabor to the right or left. Participants used the \u0026ldquo;8\u0026rdquo; key labeled with a left arrow to turn it to the left and the \u0026ldquo;9\u0026rdquo; key labeled with a right arrow to turn it to the right. Each key press made a difference of 10 degrees in the orientation of the Gabor. Participants were asked to take their time when making this memory decision and the decision process ended only when participants confirmed the decision by pressing the \u0026ldquo;0\u0026rdquo; labeled with \u0026ldquo;OK\u0026rdquo;. After this memory decision, a second retro-cue was presented for 2000 ms and after another memory interval of 1000 ms, the second memory test was performed. The second cued memory representation was the same as the first cued one on half of the trials (stay condition) and different on the other half (switch condition). This different cue was a retro-cue pointing to (one of) the previously un-cued (FR) items. The second cue was presented in blue if it was a switch trial and in green if it was a stay trial. For the second memory test, participants made a decision as in the first memory test, this time rotating a horizontal Gabor orientation stimulus. Following this decision, the trial ended, and the next trial started when participants pressed the \u0026ldquo;space\u0026rdquo; key.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere were three different load conditions: i) Currently Relevant Load \u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;1, and Future Relevant Load \u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;1 (1C-1F), ii) Currently Relevant Load \u0026ndash; 2 and Future Relevant Load \u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;1 (2C-1F), Currently Relevant Load \u0026ndash; 1, and Future Relevant Load \u0026ndash; 2 (1C-2F). A total of 24 trials (with 72 flankers) were presented for each load condition. The proportions of stay and switch conditions were kept at 50% in all three conditions. An example of a trial in the 1C-1F condition is illustrated in Fig. \u003cspan class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the 1C-1F condition, with a rate of 50%, one of the two memory items was the first-cued item, while the other was the item cued in the switch trials of the second memory test.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the 1C-2F condition, the probability that the first retro-cue indicated each of the three memory representations was equal (1/3). In the switch trials, the probability that the second retro-cue indicated one of the two remaining future-relevant (FR) items was also equal (50%).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the 2C-1F condition, the first retro-cue indicated two memory items using one of three possible cue combinations (1\u0026ndash;2, 1\u0026ndash;3, or 2\u0026ndash;3), each presented with equal probability (1/3). Which of the two items was probed was then specified by a number shown at the bottom of the memory test display (these numerical indicators were used in all three conditions and during both memory tests). For stay trials in the second memory test, the second retro-cue always indicated the item that had been tested in the first memory test; for switch trials, it indicated the remaining FR item.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eProcedure and Statistical Approach\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe study received ethical approval from the university board (No: 1228365) and was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Before starting the experiment, informed consent was obtained from the participants. The participant was then presented with a short version of the actual experiment (a version consisting of six trials in each condition) to familiarize the participant with the task. This practice section lasted approximately 10 minutes. In the main task, it took approximately 12 minutes to complete condition 1C-1F and 13 minutes to complete each condition 2C-1F and 1C-2F. During the task, two resting periods of maximally 3 minutes each were added between the three conditions. Complete participation took approximately 1 hour for each participant.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll analyses were run through JASP (JASP Team, \u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). A factorial ANOVA design with 2 (Memory Test: First and Second) x 2 (Test Type: Stay and Switch) x 3 (Condition: 1C-1F, 2C-1F and 1C-2F) repeated measures was used to examine memory performance. The dependent variable for this analysis was the memory accuracy variable. Memory accuracy was determined as the mean of the angular difference between the orientation of the memory item asked of the participant and the orientation recreated by the participant. A decrease in this difference will correspond to an increase in memory accuracy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe role of representational status and load on the flanker performance effect was examined using a 2 (Congruency: Congruent and Incongruent) x 3 (Condition: 1C-1F, 2C-1F and 1C-2F) repeated measures factorial ANOVA design. The dependent variables for this analysis were flanker task error percentage and mean reaction time for correct flanker trials. Reaction times that were not within 3.29 standard deviations of the mean RT (0.1% of distribution) of participants in any condition were removed from the reaction time analysis.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is worth emphasizing that we used continuous-report decisions for testing memory accuracy rather than binary (correct/incorrect) decisions. Therefore, our memory test made \u0026ldquo;correctness\u0026rdquo; a matter of precision rather than categorical accuracy. The main reason why this was preferred was that small angular memory precision differences can also be clearly detected and the probability of a correct decision due to chance can be reduced. Previous studies of the interaction of memory load and attention have generally analyzed attentional performance on attentional task trials involving correct memory decisions to make sure that representations have been maintained in memory. However, applying this approach to our task would lead to extensive data loss, especially given that the definition of \u0026ldquo;correct\u0026rdquo; (zero-degree error) was met on only\u0026thinsp;~\u0026thinsp;25% of first memory test trials.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMoreover, given the inconsistent literature (e.g., Gresch et al., \u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Hautekiet et al., \u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e) on memory performance for prioritized or unprioritized representations (in particular, findings showing that prioritization does not always lead to better performance especially if there is an external stimulus in the retention interval), we thought that artificially selecting only high-precision trials may unintentionally mask or misrepresent the functional role of different types of memory representations. Therefore, we analyzed the full dataset without filtering any trials with certain memory precision. This approach maximizes statistical power and ensures that flanker congruency was balanced across experimental conditions. Importantly, most trials (~\u0026thinsp;70%) had an angular difference within 30\u0026deg; in any condition, indicating that participants were likely engaging with the correct memory content, even when performance was not perfect. We believe this inclusive strategy provides a more ecologically valid and statistically sound basis for assessing distractor interference during VWM retention, especially given the continuous nature of our memory measure and the dual-memory structure of the task.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Results","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVisual Working Memory Performance\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVWM performance of the participants was examined with a 3 (Condition: 1C-1F, 2C-1F and 1C-2F) x 2 (Memory Test: First and Second) x 2 (Test Type: Stay and Switch) ANOVA for repeated measures on the mean angular differences. According to the results, the main effect of \u003cem\u003eCondition\u003c/em\u003e was significant (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(2, 94)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;3.712, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.028, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026sup2;\u003c/em\u003e = .073). Bonferroni corrected pairwise comparisons indicated that the mean angular difference under the 2C-1F condition was greatest and statistically different from the difference under the 1C-1F condition (\u003cem\u003eMD\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;2.444, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.909, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.025) and there was no statistical difference between other conditions. The main effect of \u003cem\u003eMemory Test\u003c/em\u003e was also significant (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 47)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;39.347, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.001, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026sup2;\u003c/em\u003e = .456) and showed that the mean angular difference was lower at the first memory test (\u003cem\u003eMD\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;2.888, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.460). On the other hand, although the angular difference was higher for stay condition, the main effect of \u003cem\u003eTest Type\u003c/em\u003e did not reach significance (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 47)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;2.930, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.094, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026sup2;\u003c/em\u003e = .059).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe two-way interaction between \u003cem\u003eCondition and Memory Test\u003c/em\u003e was significant (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(2, 94)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;3.174, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.046, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026sup2;\u003c/em\u003e = .063). Bonferroni corrected pairwise comparisons showed that the pattern of main \u003cem\u003eMemory Test\u003c/em\u003e effect (First\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;Second) was observed under both 1C-1F (\u003cem\u003eMD\u003c/em\u003e = -4.219, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.775, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.001) and 1C-2F (\u003cem\u003eMD\u003c/em\u003e = -2.943, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.775, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.003) conditions but not observed under 2C-1F condition (\u003cem\u003eMD\u003c/em\u003e = -1.502, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.775, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.818). It was also observed that whereas there was no difference between any conditions at second memory test, at the first memory test the mean angular difference was smallest under the 1C-1F condition, and this was statistically lower than the difference under 2C-1F (\u003cem\u003eMD\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;3.802, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1.057, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.007). There were no differences between the other conditions at the first memory test (Fig. \u003cspan class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe interaction between \u003cem\u003eCondition and Test Type\u003c/em\u003e was also significant (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(2, 94)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;4.441, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.014, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026sup2;\u003c/em\u003e = .086). According to Bonferroni corrected pairwise comparisons, the difference between Stay and Switch conditions was marginally significant only under the 1C-1F condition (\u003cem\u003eMD\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;2.604, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.890, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.060) showing that the angular difference was greater in the Stay condition. While there was no difference between any two conditions in the Stay condition, there was a marginally significant difference between the 1C-1F and 2C-1F condition in the Switch condition (\u003cem\u003eMD\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;3.142, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1.091, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.068) which showed that the mean angular difference was greater in 2C-1F condition.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn the other hand, the interaction between \u003cem\u003eMemory Test and Test Type\u003c/em\u003e (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 47)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.533, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.469, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026sup2;\u003c/em\u003e = .011) and three-way interaction (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(2, 94)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.352, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.705, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026sup2;\u003c/em\u003e = .007) were not significant.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFlanker Performance\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eError Rates\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMean error rates on the flanker task were analyzed by 3 (Condition: 1C-1F, 2C-1F, and 1C-2F) x 2 (Congruency: Congruent, and Incongruent) factorial ANOVA for repeated measures. Since the sphericity assumption was violated for the Condition variable (\u0026chi;\u0026sup2;(2)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;7.010, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.030), Huynh-Feldt correction (\u0026epsilon;\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.907) was used for the degrees of freedom in related effects and reported accordingly.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe main effect of \u003cem\u003eCondition\u003c/em\u003e was not significant (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1.81, 85.29)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1.571, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.215, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026sup2;\u003c/em\u003e = .032) which indicated that there was no difference between conditions in terms of error rates. The main effect of \u003cem\u003eCongruency\u003c/em\u003e was significant (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 47)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;20.238, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.001, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026sup2;\u003c/em\u003e = .301) and showed that mean error rate in the congruent condition was lower than in the incongruent condition (\u003cem\u003eMD\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;2.009, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.447, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.001). The interaction between \u003cem\u003eCondition and Congruency\u003c/em\u003e was not significant (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1.89, 89.03)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.362, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.686, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026sup2;\u003c/em\u003e = .008) which indicated that the error rate difference between congruent and incongruent conditions was similar for each level of the Condition variable.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReaction Times (RT)\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eReaction times on correct flanker trials were analyzed by a 3 (Condition: 1C-1F, 2C-1F, and 1C-2F) x 2 (Congruency: Congruent and Incongruent) factorial ANOVA for repeated measures.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe main effect of \u003cem\u003eCondition\u003c/em\u003e was not significant (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(2, 94)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;2.317, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.104, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026sup2;\u003c/em\u003e = .047) showing that mean RTs were similar in all conditions. The main effect of \u003cem\u003eCongruency\u003c/em\u003e was significant (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 47)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;91.728, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.001, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026sup2;\u003c/em\u003e = .661). According to this significant main effect, RTs to targets in congruent trials were faster than in incongruent trials (\u003cem\u003eMD\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;44.885, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;4.687). Importantly, the interaction between \u003cem\u003eCondition and Congruency\u003c/em\u003e was also significant (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(2, 94)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;5.889, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.004, \u003cem\u003e\u0026eta;\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026sup2;\u003c/em\u003e = .111). Bonferroni corrected pairwise comparisons revealed that significant congruency effects were observed in all conditions (for 1C-1F condition: \u003cem\u003eMD\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;57.131, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;7.182, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.001; for 2C-1F condition: \u003cem\u003eMD\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;26.547, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;7.182, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.005; for 1C-2F condition: \u003cem\u003eMD\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;50.977, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;7.182, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.001). Further Bonferroni corrected pairwise comparisons of the congruency effects in the different levels of the Condition factor revealed that the congruency effect was significantly smaller in the 2C-1F condition compared to the 1C-1F (\u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;3.244, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.005) and the 1C-2F condition (\u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;2.591, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.033). Congruency effects were not significantly different in the 1C-1F and 1C-2F conditions (\u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.653, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1.000; Fig. \u003cspan class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\n"},{"header":"Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003eIn the current study, we aimed to investigate how distractor rejection in selective attention and memory acuity were influenced by representational status and load of visual working memory (VWM) content. To this end, we manipulated the representational status of memory items as currently relevant (CR) and future relevant (FR), and their load as 1 and 2 item(s).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFirst of all, it is necessary to discuss whether differences in the status of memory representations are reflected in memory accuracy. Although memory performance during the first memory test in which only CR items were tested was better than the second memory test in which both CR and FR were tested, this difference may not have solely reflected a status effect. It might have also reflected the difference in time of testing. Since both representation status had the same probability of being tested and the same testing time, the second memory test performance was better to examine the behavioral consequences of cue-dependent prioritization. According to the results, no significant difference was found between switch or stay items in this second memory test phase. At first glance, this may seem to undermine the efficacy of retro-cue-based prioritization; recent studies suggest that such null effects are not only plausible but theoretically grounded. For instance, Gresch et al (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e) demonstrated that internal attentional prioritization does not always provide benefits (e.g., retro-cueing) particularly when concurrent tasks demand external attention. In our study, presenting concurrent flanker tasks may have reduced the effectiveness of the retro-cues and potentially explain the comparable performance between switch and stay conditions.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFurther supporting evidence on the inconsistency of a prioritization benefit was provided by Hautekiet et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e) who reported that retro-cueing does not consistently shield memory representations from interference. Additionally, Lout et al. (2023) highlight that actively used or updated memory representations may indeed be more vulnerable to distraction than passively stored ones. These findings align with our results, suggesting that the interaction between external interference and internal prioritization is dynamic, and being prioritized does not necessarily confer robustness in memory, especially when attentional resources are allocated elsewhere.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAnother key finding was that first memory test performance declined significantly when the load CR items increased from one to two (1C1F \u0026rarr; 2C1F) but did not decline when the load of FR items increased (1C1F \u0026rarr; 1C2F). This selective load effect suggests that it is not the total amount of information stored in working memory that impairs performance, but rather the number of items prioritized for immediate use. Increased CR load likely leads to competition for representational fidelity within the associated perceptual systems, reducing the precision with which each item can be stored and recalled. In contrast, FR items may be stored in a different format or location, such as activity-silent states or higher-order brain regions (e.g., parietal cortex), which may be functionally insulated from the sensory-perceptual resources required for CR maintenance. These findings are consistent with recent findings (e.g., Christophel et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; Yu et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e) suggesting that CR and FR items occupy different representational states in the brain, with only CR items engaging sustained activity in the visual cortex. As such, only CR load taxes the perceptual-attentional system, making it a stronger predictor of distractor resistance and memory precision during initial retrieval. This would explain why increasing the number of FR items did not impose the same performance cost during the first memory test, which specifically targeted CR items.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTurning to the flanker task results, we found that distractor interference was significantly reduced only in the 2C-1F condition. In both 1C-1F and 1C-2F conditions, interference was greater and statistically equivalent. The finding that only CR load reduced distractor interference can indicate that this type of load engages perceptual systems more directly, likely through sustained activity in the visual cortex. FR load, however, did not affect distractor interference regardless of its level of load, supporting the conclusion that future relevant items are not stored in perceptually active formats.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis pattern of interaction between VWM and distractor rejection also supports the core prediction of perceptual load theory, proposing that when perceptual resources are consumed by target-related stimuli in an attention task or by concurrent active VWM representations, the processing of irrelevant stimuli is reduced (Gunduz et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e; Lavie, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e). However, in addition to supporting evidence that increasing VWM load resulted in reduced perceptual processing of distractors (Konstantinou et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Roper \u0026amp; Vecera, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e), there are also several studies reporting no attentional modulation effect as a function of load on VWM (Gunduz \u0026amp; Ozkan Ceylan., 2025; Lee \u0026amp; Jeong, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Yao et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e) or a reverse effect (Zhang \u0026amp; Luck, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). Our status-dependent results may help to explain some of these inconsistencies by challenging the assumption that overall memory load modulates perceptual interference and suggest instead that the attentional priority status of representations determines their impact on distractor processing. This perspective offers a valuable framework for interpreting previous studies that reported inconsistent effects of VWM load on distractor interference.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMany of the studies mentioned above compared low (e.g., 1-item) and high (e.g., 4-item) memory loads without manipulating prioritization level. In such designs, all items are equally likely to be tested and thus maintained with equal task relevance. However, because attention must be divided across multiple items in the high load condition, each item may receive only a fraction of internal attention. As a result, even though the total attentional effort may be high, the per-item attentional allocation may be insufficient to robustly engage perceptual resources needed for distractor suppression. In contrast, a single-item low-load condition may produce a highly prioritized and perceptually active representation, despite the overall memory load being low. This could explain why some studies have paradoxically observed a similar or even greater level of distractor interference under high VWM load. The inconsistency across these findings may also reflect individual differences in encoding strategy or strategic flexibility, particularly in the absence of explicit cues. In our study, prioritization was experimentally controlled, revealing that only CR items\u0026mdash;those most likely to be tested\u0026mdash;engaged the perceptual system enough to reduce external interference. This suggests that it is not simply the quantity of memory items, but the quality and priority of the representations that determines their interaction with selective attention mechanisms. Nevertheless, future studies aiming to directly test our proposed inference for these inconsistent findings are needed.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAltogether, our findings emphasize the need for future research to move beyond simple memory load comparisons and instead account for how attentional resources are distributed across memory items. Moreover, our results supported recent theoretical accounts showing that retro-cued representations are not always of better quality and robustness than un-cued representations especially under conditions that tax external attention. We also provided indirect evidence that the brain areas or patterns of activation that are critical for the maintenance of these two types of representation might indeed be different. Together, our findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the shared and competitive nature of internal and external attention, delineating the boundaries of retro-cue efficacy and the contextual dynamics of memory prioritization in complex tasks.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhile our study offers important insights into the interaction between internal prioritization and external attention demands, several limitations should be noted. First, we did not include neuroimaging or electrophysiological measures, which meant we could not directly assess whether CR and FR items were stored in distinct neural states. Second, our conclusions about the effectiveness of prioritization are drawn from behavioral data alone, and although there are some findings that are in line with ours, the lack of significant differences between stay and switch trials in the second memory test limits how confidently we can interpret prioritization success under distraction. Third limitation is the absence of a no-distraction control condition, which would have allowed clearer attribution of performance changes specifically to the flanker task. Another limitation, the use of only Gabor stimuli and a letter-based response competition task enhances internal validity but may constrain the generalizability of the findings to other status of memory representations or real-world multitasking contexts. These factors should be addressed in future research to strengthen and extend the current findings.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor Contributions:\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eConceptualization: Hasan Gunduz; Methodology: Hasan Gunduz; Formal analysis and investigation: Hasan Gunduz, Turan Gunduz; Writing - original draft preparation: Hasan Gunduz, Turan Gunduz; Writing - review and editing: Hasan Gunduz, Turan Gunduz, Jan de Fockert, Supervision: Jan de Fockert.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConflict of interest:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eThe authors report no conflict of interest.\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFunding:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eNo funding was received for conducting this study.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eData availability:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eData are available at the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/f6sd5/?view_only=8f3c7a39b2824c08b63ad15329ce0271\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBaddeley, A. 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(2015). \u0026lsquo;Activity-silent\u0026rsquo;working memory in prefrontal cortex: a dynamic coding framework. \u003cem\u003eTrends in Cognitive Sciences\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e19\u003c/em\u003e(7), 394-405\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eYao, N., Guo, Y., Liu, Y., Shen, M., \u0026amp; Gao, Z. (2020). Visual working-memory capacity load does not modulate distractor processing. \u003cem\u003eAttention, Perception, \u0026amp; Psychophysics\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e82\u003c/em\u003e, 3291-3313.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eYu, Q., Teng, C., \u0026amp; Postle, B. R. (2020). Different states of priority recruit different neural representations in visual working memory. \u003cem\u003ePLoS Biology\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e18\u003c/em\u003e(6), e3000769.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eZhang, W., \u0026amp; Luck, S. J. (2015). Opposite effects of capacity load and resolution load on distractor processing. \u003cem\u003eJournal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e41\u003c/em\u003e(1), 22\u0026ndash;27. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000013\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":true,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"psychological-research","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"prpf","sideBox":"Learn more about [Psychological Research](http://link.springer.com/journal/426)","snPcode":"426","submissionUrl":"https://submission.nature.com/new-submission/426/3","title":"Psychological Research","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"em","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"visual working memory, attention, distractor interference, prioritization","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7014182/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-7014182/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eVisual working memory (VWM) can store multiple items with varying degrees of attentional priority. We investigated how different load and prioritization status of memory items affected both memory precision and distractor resistance. We used a dual-task paradigm in which 48 participants encoded sets of oriented Gabor patches and completed a flanker task during the retention interval. The design varied status of memory items as currently relevant (CR), and future relevant (FR) and their load as one and two across three load conditions using retro-cues. Results showed that increasing CR load reduced distractor interference and memory precision, while increasing FR load had no effect on either measure. Importantly, no consistent advantage was observed for prioritized items in later memory tests, aligning with recent findings that retro-cue benefits can degrade under external attentional demands. These results support a functional dissociation between CR and FR items in VWM and highlight how attentional state\u0026mdash;not memory load alone\u0026mdash;shapes the functional impact of VWM representations.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Effects of Visual Working Memory Load and Item Priority on Susceptibility to Distraction and Memory Accuracy","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-07-07 08:08:30","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7014182/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"decision","content":"Revision requested","date":"2025-08-01T07:44:54+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2025-07-24T22:54:48+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2025-07-23T13:43:24+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"105020464629666133651826826033276603266","date":"2025-07-03T08:24:55+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"164899639776341827688155671081501591317","date":"2025-07-02T19:13:57+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"","date":"2025-07-02T17:10:21+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2025-07-01T15:50:34+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2025-07-01T02:48:40+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"Psychological Research","date":"2025-06-30T21:12:32+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"psychological-research","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"prpf","sideBox":"Learn more about [Psychological Research](http://link.springer.com/journal/426)","snPcode":"426","submissionUrl":"https://submission.nature.com/new-submission/426/3","title":"Psychological Research","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"em","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"9c1135fc-3239-41b9-8d01-446e36831454","owner":[],"postedDate":"July 7th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"published-in-journal","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-10-20T16:00:23+00:00","versionOfRecord":{"articleIdentity":"rs-7014182","link":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-025-02185-2","journal":{"identity":"psychological-research","isVorOnly":false,"title":"Psychological Research"},"publishedOn":"2025-10-15 15:57:16","publishedOnDateReadable":"October 15th, 2025"},"versionCreatedAt":"2025-07-07 08:08:30","video":"","vorDoi":"10.1007/s00426-025-02185-2","vorDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-025-02185-2","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-7014182","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-7014182","identity":"rs-7014182","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}