| This study uses latent-variable analysis to investigate the roles of control and attentional scope aspects of working memory (WM) on three visual search tasks that the literature indicates involve controlled processing—preview search (Watson & Humphreys, 1997), cued location search (Poole & Kane, 2009) and attention capture search (Lavie & De Fockert, 2005). Latent variable analyses indicate that control and attentional scope aspects of WM are best conceptualized as part of the same unitary WM construct rather than as separate entities. Capture search resulted in an unexpected reverse capture effect with the presence of irrelevant stimuli leading to faster search. Modeling indicated that controlled processes involved in preview search and cued search should be conceptualized as reflecting the same processes rather than separate types of control, in spite of differences in task requirements. After partialling out variability common to traditional search which does not recruit control processes (Kane, Poole, Tuholski & Engle, 2006), the unitary WM factor was related to a latent control factor based on preview search and cued search performance. |
