More attention with less working memory: The active inhibition of attended but outdated information.

Abstract

Attention has traditionally been regarded as a gateway to working memory, and almost all theoretical frameworks of attention and working memory assume that individuals always have a better memory for information that has received more attention. Here, we provide a series of counterintuitive demonstrations that show that paying more attention to a piece of information impedes, rather than enhances, the selection of this information into working memory. Experiments 1 to 5 provide converging evidence for an even weaker working memory trace of fully attended but outdated features, compared with baseline irrelevant features that were completely ignored. This indicates that the brain actively inhibits attended but outdated information to prevent it from entering working memory. Experiment 6 demonstrates that this inhibition processing is subject to executive control. These findings lead to a substantial reinterpretation of the relationship between attention and working memory.