Coordinating the interaction between past and present: Visual working memory for feature bindings overwritten by subsequent action to matching features

Perceptual stimuli with novel bindings interfere with visual working memory

What influences the extent to which perceptual information interferes with the contents of visual working memory? In two experiments using a combination of change detection and continuous reproduction tasks, I show that binding novelty is a key factor in producing interference. In Experiment 2, participants viewed arrays of colored circles, then completed consecutive change detection and recall tests of their memory for stochastically independent items from the same array. When the probe used in the change detection test was novel (i.e., required a “change” response), subsequent recall performance was worse than in trials with matching (i.e., “no change”) probes, irrespective of whether or not the same item was tested in both phases. In Experiment 2, participants viewed arrays of oriented arrows, then completed a change detection (requiring memory) or direction judgement (not requiring memory) test, followed by recalling a stochastically independent item. Again, novel probes in the first phase led to worse recall, irrespective of whether the initial task required memory. This effect held whether the probe was wholly novel (i.e., a new feature presented at any location) or simply involved a novel binding (i.e., an old feature presented at a new location). These findings highlight the role of novelty in visual interference, consistent with the assumptions of computational models of WM, and suggest that new bindings of old information are sufficient to produce such interference.