Symbiosis of executive and selective attention in working memory

Vandierendonck, André · 2014 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00588

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Summary

This hypothesis and theory article by André Vandierendonck addresses the unresolved question of whether selective attention is an indispensable component of working memory (WM). While traditional WM models, such as Baddeley and Hitch’s framework, emphasize executive control for task coordination, they often neglect the role of selective attention mechanisms like orienting. The author reviews behavioral evidence to argue that executive and selective attention share a symbiotic relationship within WM, proposing a model where selective attention control is directly linked to the executive WM module. The paper synthesizes findings from various experimental paradigms, including dual-task methodologies and individual differences approaches. It examines how WM capacity and concurrent WM loads affect performance in tasks requiring conflict resolution and stimulus selection, such as the Stroop task, flanker task, negative priming, attentional blink, and visual search. The review distinguishes between tasks involving executive attention (conflict resolution) and those involving perceptual selectivity (attentional capture and search), analyzing whether these processes draw on shared WM resources. Key findings indicate that WM capacity and load significantly modulate performance in conflict-based tasks. High WM capacity individuals exhibit smaller Stroop interference effects and better post-conflict adjustment, suggesting superior ability to maintain task goals and suppress irrelevant information. Similarly, WM loads impair performance in flanker tasks and reduce negative priming effects, particularly when the load shares the same modality as the task. In contrast, the relationship is less consistent for tasks lacking active conflict resolution. For instance, while some studies show that WM loads increase interference from irrelevant singletons in attentional capture tasks, other research finds that WM capacity does not affect standard visual search efficiency. The author notes that inefficient visual search and command search tasks do engage domain-general WM resources, whereas efficient search does not. The significance of this work lies in its proposal to broaden the theoretical scope of WM beyond executive control to include selective attention. The author concludes that executive and selective attention are not distinct but rather symbiotic; the executive WM module represents the current task set, and control processes are triggered based on these settings. When selective attention control must be shared among active tasks, performance is constrained by the capacity limits of this integrated control system. This model suggests that WM is not merely a storage facility supervised by an executive, but a system where executive control and selective attention are functionally intertwined, providing a more comprehensive understanding of how memory resources support complex cognitive tasks.

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Topics

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• working memory
• attention
• capacity resource theory
• executive function