Editorial: Turning the Mind's Eye Inward: The Interplay Between Selective Attention and Working Memory

Abrahamse, Elger; Majerus, Steve; Fias, Wim; van Dijck, Jean‐Philippe · 2015 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00616

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Summary

This editorial introduces a Research Topic in *Frontiers in Human Neuroscience* focused on the interplay between selective attention and working memory. The authors address the fundamental cognitive science question of how the brain maintains information and performs mental operations on it. While traditional models, such as Baddeley’s, view attention as an executive mechanism supervising dedicated buffers, recent theories propose that working memory emerges directly from selective attention directed at long-term memory representations. The editorial highlights that despite the dominance of these attentional models, further empirical and theoretical work is required to determine their precise implications for specific working memory characteristics in both healthy and neuropsychological populations. The Research Topic aggregates contributions categorized into three broad classes. First, studies investigate the direct interplay between selective attention and working memory. Key findings include a review by Camos and Barrouillet identifying attentional and non-attentional mechanisms in verbal working memory maintenance, and Vergauwe and Cowan’s conclusion that attentional search within working memory occurs at a high-speed rate of approximately 35–40 ms per item, potentially reflecting gamma oscillations. Other studies examine how sensory saliency modulates working memory contents, the time course of protecting memory representations from interference, and the representational state of non-prioritized items. Additionally, Abrahamse et al. hypothesize that serial order coding in verbal working memory utilizes the spatial attention system, while Ginsburg and Gevers find that serial order in both working and long-term memory drives spatial effects differentially. Second, the collection explores how this interplay aids in understanding cognitive difficulties across various populations. Holmes et al. compare children with ADHD and those with low working memory capacity, while Wong et al. describe cognitive characteristics associated with the fragile X premutation. Roome et al. demonstrate how bisecting working memory into attentional and other components clarifies its normal development. Third, the topic extrapolates insights to other domains, such as using oculometric parameters like fixation duration to predict working memory resources (Meghanathan et al.) and investigating how individual differences in working memory capacity influence word relocation during reading (Tanaka et al.). The authors conclude that these studies provide significant inspiration for continued empirical work on the relationship between selective attention and working memory. By integrating empirical observations, reviews, and theoretical proposals, the Research Topic advances the understanding of how attentional mechanisms underpin working memory maintenance, retrieval, and protection against interference. This synthesis supports the view that working memory is not merely a storage buffer but a dynamic process deeply intertwined with selective attention, with broad implications for cognitive modeling and the assessment of neuropsychological conditions.

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Topics

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• working memory
• attention selective divided
• attention