Divergent Findings for Prospective Memory Items in VWM and LTM on Suppression Durations Within the b-CFS Paradigm.

Abstract

Items in visual working memory (VWM) can help to prioritize information. An experiment was conducted to investigate whether a memory item, only relevant for a memory recall test later, can influence access to awareness of a suppressed stimulus in a suppression task. In the experiment, subjects were first asked to remember a prospectively relevant item (a colour hue), on which they would be tested later in the experiment. Subsequently, the subjects were administered a breaking continuous flash suppression (b-CFS) task. This prospective memory item remained the same for several trials. The memory-based influence of the colour was measured in breakthrough times, where breakthrough times were assumed to be indicative of access to awareness. The Suppression duration times of the suppression task provide knowledge about whether these memory items are transferred from VWM to long-term memory (LTM) and back. It was expected that items in VWM would influence the subjects’ performance on the b-CFS task, whereas items stored in the LTM would have no influence. After trial repetition it is expected that the prospective memory items being transferred from VWM to LTM and back to VWM before being replaced by a new memory item. However, the results showed no effect prospective memory on the b-CFS task, suggesting no effect from the prospective memory item on the suppressed stimulus.