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Abstract The Attentional Boost Effect (ABE) refers to the counter-intuitive finding that the detection of infrequent targets in a divided-attention (DA) condition enhances memory of images co-occurring with targets (as compared with images co-occurring with distractors; Swallow & Jiang Cognition, 115, 118-132, 2010). Previous studies have shown that the ABE also applies to verbal materials (words; Spataro, Mulligan, & Rossi-Arnaud Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 39, 1223- 1231 , 2013) and documented an important moderating factor, word frequency-the ABE was robust for high-frequency words, but small or non-significant for low-frequency words (Mulligan, Spataro, & Picklesimer Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40, 1049- 1063, 2014). The present experiment tested the predictions of the early-phase-elevated-attention hypothesis of the ABE by manipulating the orthographic distinctiveness of the to-beremembered words. Results revealed that the ABE was significant for low-frequency words with common orthographic features, but not for low-frequency words with rare orthographic features. As a consequence, the orthographic distinctiveness effect (ODE) was eliminated in the DA condition. These findings are in line with the proposal that the ABErelated attentional enhancement occurs during an early phase of stimulus perception and comprehension, as well as with the proposal that the ODE is mediated by high-level, attention demanding comparative processes.
Keywords Memory and attention . Recognition . Word recognition
Introduction
Divided attention (DA) at encoding typically reduces memory performance in explicit tasks (Mulligan, 2008), as well as in some, but not all, implicit tasks (Spataro, Cestari, & Rossi- Arnaud, 2011). However, under specific circumstances, the detection of infrequent targets in a DA condition can enhance memory of background scenes (Swallow & Jiang, 2010, 2013). Participants in these experiments encoded a long sequence of images, while simultaneously monitoring the colour of a small square located at the centre of each image. In the DA condition, they were to memorize the scenes and press the spacebar of the computer whenever they detected occasional white squares (targets) among more frequent black squares (distractors). In a later four-choice recognition task, Swallow and Jiang (2010) found higher hit rates for scenes encoded with targets than for scenes encoded with distractors, the attentional boost effect (ABE). No memory enhancement was observed in the full-attention (FA) condition, when participants ignored the squares....