Abstract
Top-down attentional control can bias visual short-term memory (VSTM), such that “retro-cues”, cues presented after a stimulus array, improve memory for cued items. Less is known, however, about whether memory for different aspects of a stimulus, such as its identity or spatial location, are also affected by top-down attention. Here we investigated the effect of top-down attention on VSTM for object type and spatial location. Further, and based on prior research suggesting a link between subthreshold autism traits and working memory impairments, we administered a questionnaire to measure autism traits. Ninety-four typical individuals varying in the number of autism traits performed a visual search task in which they were asked to detect the presence or absence of a target. To measure the top-down attention effect on VSTM, on a subset of trials, participants were probed about the target’s identity (what it was) and its location (where it was). For target-present trials, we found a dissociation in VSTM for what and where memory, as participants were less accurate for what (37%) as compared to where (86%) target information. Further, VSTM performance varied with participants’ number of autism-like traits, whereby those with fewer autism traits were more accurate for what probes and less accurate for where probes as compared to those with greater numbers of autism traits. Finally, we found that accuracy for the attention task correlated with VSTM for spatial location, but not item type. On the whole then, while participants were overall more accurate at remembering the spatial location of the target as compare to its identity, an individual’s social competence modulated this effect. In addition, top-down attention modulated VSTM for spatial information only.