Abstract
Objects that differ from their neighboring objects in terms of a salient visual feature – referred to as feature singletons – are known to capture attention under a wide range of conditions. However, little is known about whether their salience affects encoding of information into visual working memory (VWM). In the present experiment, we asked participants to remember the orientations of four colored triangles over a brief delay. On half of the trials, one triangle possessed a unique color, and on another half, all triangles had the same color. Although color was truly task-irrelevant (all triangles were equally likely to be tested), the probability of an item being remembered was higher when its color was unique. Furthermore, individual differences in VWM performance on non-singleton trials predicted the difference in memory between singleton and non-singleton items on trials where a singleton was present. Our results highlight the contribution of physical salience to the information that is encoded in visual working memory
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2016