As two resource-limited cognitive processes, attention and working memory (WM) interact with each other extensively. On the one hand, distractors or attentive tasks impair WM maintenance. On the other hand, content in WM guides or biases attention in a top-down way. The present dissertation explored two questions on the study of memory-driven attentional capture: (1) How memory-matching and memory-irrelevant distractors affect WM in different initial WM load conditions? (2) How WM manipulation (mental rotation and rehearsal) affects memory-driven attentional capture? The results showed that: (1) When distractors succeeded capturing attention during visual search, initial WM load modulated the influence of distractor on WM. That is, the memory-matching distractor impaired WM performance and this impairment was larger than a memory-irrelevant distractor when the initial WM load was high. But when the initial WM load was low, there was no such an effect. (2) The time for selective consolidation affected the distractor interference on WM. Only when people had enough time to selectively maintain one item, they can resist the interference of subsequent perceptual input on WM. The time for this selective consolidation was about 65 ms/item. (3) WM manipulation resulted in the disappearance of memory-driven attentional capture. (4) Any rehearsal will disrupt memory-driven attentional capture, e.g., rehearsing memory-matching color, or memory-irrelevant color, or digit. The influence of rehearsal on memory-driven attentional capture may exist in two different mechanisms. The present dissertation solved the previous debate on how memory-matching distractor affects WM, and also explored the role of selective consolidation on the interference of memory-matching distractor on WM. Meanwhile, this dissertation is the first to show that WM manipulation disrupts memory-driven attentional capture, which extends and deepens the understanding on memory-driven attentional capture, as well as provides some perspectives on this topic.
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