The contents of visual working memory on visual search

There has been a controversy on whether the contents of visual working memory can affect visual search. Some researchers found that the contents of visual working memory influenced what was attended in visual search (Meijer& Theeuwes, 2006), whereas other researchers failed to report any evidence of such capture effects by visual working memory (Woodman&Luck, 2007). Using visual search task paradigm and 2-D abstractly symmetric shapes, this study explored the effect of visual working memory to visual search. The results showed that the information which was stored in working memory affected the visual search efficiency and different display sizes did not change the trend of result.