TY  - JOUR
A1  - Lange, Elke B.
A1  - Starzynski, Christian
A1  - Engbert, Ralf
T1  - Capture of the gaze does not capture the mind
JF  - Attention, perception, & psychophysics : AP&P ; a journal of the Psychonomic Society, Inc.
N2  - Sudden visual changes attract our gaze, and related eye movement control requires attentional resources. Attention is a limited resource that is also involved in working memory-for instance, memory encoding. As a consequence, theory suggests that gaze capture could impair the buildup of memory respresentations due to an attentional resource bottleneck. Here we developed an experimental design combining a serial memory task (verbal or spatial) and concurrent gaze capture by a distractor (of high or low similarity to the relevant item). The results cannot be explained by a general resource bottleneck. Specifically, we observed that capture by the low-similar distractor resulted in delayed and reduced saccade rates to relevant items in both memory tasks. However, while spatial memory performance decreased, verbal memory remained unaffected. In contrast, the high-similar distractor led to capture and memory loss for both tasks. Our results lend support to the view that gaze capture leads to activation of irrelevant representations in working memory that compete for selection at recall. Activation of irrelevant spatial representations distracts spatial recall, whereas activation of irrelevant verbal features impairs verbal memory performance.
KW  - Attention
KW  - Memory
KW  - Cognitive eye movements
KW  - Visual working memory
KW  - Short-term memory
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-012-0318-8
SN  - 1943-3921
VL  - 74
IS  - 6
SP  - 1168
EP  - 1182
PB  - Springer
CY  - New York
ER  -