How attentional selection influences our goal-directed memory recall

Our long-term memory has the impressive ability to store numerous details about a particular event. However, when we recall this past event, usually only certain details are relevant. The phenomenon of retrieving only particular details from past events is known as goal-directed memory reactivation. In their latest study, Melinda Sabo, Edmund Wascher and Daniel Schneider from the Leibniz Institute for Human Factors in Dortmund (IfADo) have investigated this process of goal-directed memory retrieval and how attention can help us achieve this efficiently.

If we focus our attention on particular features of memorized past events, our brain can recall the information more quickly and with greater certainty at a later point in time. However, the accuracy with which information can be recalled does not change. This is the conclusion of the study conducted with the help of a memory experiment.

Attention selection helps with information processing

During the experiment, participants were asked to learn to associate objects with two locations on the screen. After the initial learning phase, for certain objects, participants were told to concentrate on only one location. For other objects, all originally learnt locations remained relevant. Via these two conditions, researchers manipulated attention. At the end of the experiment, the objects were presented again and participants had to indicate the correct location associated with each object. Researchers were interested in differences in response accuracy, reaction time and response confidence between the two conditions.
Overall, the results indicate that focusing on one feature, a process, which involves attentional selection, helps to retrieve information faster and with higher confidence. Thereby it plays an important role in goal-directed memory retrieval. These results were also supported by the EEG data that helped researchers track specific neural correlates associated with attention.