Abstract
Performance on visual short-term memory varies across the visual field, with biases reflecting task demands. It is thought that biases that occur in visual short-term memory mirror those seen in visual perception and attention. However, it is unknown how directing attention to remembered items affects performance across the visual field. Several studies have demonstrated that directing attention to visual stimuli enhances performance equally around the visual field, preserving perceptual visual field biases. In contrast, our previous work predicts that attention in visual short-term memory reallocates resources across the visual field, suggesting that directing attention to remembered items may equate performance across the visual field. Therefore, it is unclear whether directing attention to internal representations preserves visual field biases or redistributes resources across the visual field. To address this question directly, we asked participants to perform two change detection tasks in the left- and right- visual hemifields. In 75% of the trials, participants were given a retrocue directing them to report whether 1- they detected a change in color at a single spatial location or 2- a color cued at fixation was presented at a specific spatial location. For trials without a retrocue, participants were 1- more accurate at detecting a change in color at locations in the left visual field and 2- more accurate at locating the cued color in the right visual field. Importantly, performance did not differ across the visual field when a retrocue was presented in either task. These results demonstrate that retrocues can redirect resources across the visual field. The redistribution across the visual field suggests that the locus of attention, internal or external representations, determines the allocation of resources across the visual field.