The attentional weight of a visual object depends on the contrast of the features of the object to its local surroundings (feature contrast) and the relevance of the features to one's goals (feature relevance). We investigated the dependency in partial report experiments with briefly presented stimuli but unspeeded responses. The task was to…

Disagreement exists regarding the functional locus of semantic interference of distractor words in picture naming. This effect is a cornerstone of modern psycholinguistic models of word production, which assume that it arises in lexical response-selection. However, recent evidence from studies of dual-task performance suggests a locus in…

The serial and spatially extended nature of many real-world visual tasks suggests the need for control over the content of visual working memory (VWM). We examined the management of VWM in a task that required participants to prioritize individual objects for retention during scene viewing. There were 5 principal findings: (a) Strategic retention…