Individual differences in working memory capacity are unrelated to the magnitudes of retrocue benefits

In this paper, we explored individual differences in the magnitudes of object- and dimension-based retrocue benefit (RCB) and their relationships with visual working memory (VWM) capacity. We confirmed that both object- and dimension-based retrocues could improve VWM performance. We also found a significant positive correlation between the magnitudes of object- and dimension-based RCB indexes, suggesting a partly overlapping mechanism between the use of object- and dimension-based retrocues. However, our results provided no evidence for a correlation between VWM capacity and the magnitudes of the object- or dimension-based RCBs. Although inadequate attention control is usually assumed to be associated with VWM capacity, the results suggest that the internal attention mechanism for using retrocues in VWM retention is independent of VWM capacity.

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Recommended citation: Ye, C., Xu, Q., Astikainen, P., Zhu, Y., Liu, X., & Liu, Q. (2020). Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity Are Unrelated to the Magnitude of Benefits from Object-and Dimension-Based Retro-Cues. Scientific Reports, 11(1), 1-11.