Abstract

Change detection process based upon visual short-term memory (VSTM) requires consolidation and maintenance of memory items as well as their comparison against test items. Assuming that the amount of information-processing resources may be different for these three processes, the present study examined presence or absence of performance interference between VSTM-based change detection task at the center of display and a sensory change detection task at periphery. The results showed that less interference between the central change-detection (i.e., memory-intensive) task and peripheral sensory change-detection (i.e., perception- intensive) task was observed near the time the test items were displayed than around when the memory items were displayed. The results indicate that the amount of information-processing resources required for the comparison process is relatively small compared to the consolidation or maintenance process during the VSTM-based change detection.