The role of eye movements and covert shifts of attention in working and long-term memory retrieval.

The "Looking at Nothing" (LAN) effect describes the tendency to look toward locations where information was originally presented during memory retrieval. Previous research by Scholz et al. (Memory & Cognition, 46, 230-243, 2018) suggested that memory performance may benefit not only from eye movements to these locations, but also from covert shifts of attention. The present study investigated whether such effects also occur during retrieval from working memory. Across two experiments, participants encoded three word pairs presented at distinct screen locations. Memory for one word pair was later tested using auditory cues, either immediately after encoding (Experiments 1 and 2) or after a delay (Experiment 2). During retrieval, either gaze location (Experiments 1 and 2) or covert attention (Experiment 1) was manipulated using a digit-tracking task presented at one of three locations: congruent with the original word-pair location, incongruent, or central.Results showed no differences in memory performance between conditions. Thus, directing gaze or covert attention toward the original presentation location did not facilitate retrieval. These findings suggest that spatial reinstatement may not enhance working- or long-term memory performance in associative recognition tasks involving word pairs.