Figure 1.

Illustration of the visuospatial working memory paradigm. A trial began with a cue, which signaled the shape to attend to. On no distraction trials (1a and 1c), the cue was either two filled squares or two filled rectangles that designated the to‐be‐attended shape. On distraction trials (1b), a rectangle and square were presented, instructing the subject to attend to the filled shape and ignore the unfilled shape. After a random delay (2,000 to 2,900 ms), one of three array types was presented for 2 s (encoding phase): two color shapes, no distractor (1a); 2) four color shapes, no distractor (1c); and two color shapes, two distractor shapes (1b). After a random delay period (2,000 to 3,300 ms), a probe was presented (retrieval phase) in a location occupied by one of the attended shapes in the array. The participant decided if the probe was the same or different color than the shape in the same location of the array by pressing their right index or middle finger, respectively