ArticleeLife2026
Visual working memory guides attention rhythmically in humans.
Article in eLife, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
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Abstract
How does internal representation held in visual working memory (VWM), known as the attentional template, guide attention in humans? A longstanding debate concerns whether only one (Single-Item-Template theory) or multiple (Multiple-Item-Template theory) items serve as attentional templates simultaneously. Here, we propose a Rhythmic-Item-Template hypothesis, successfully reconciling these seemingly contradictory theories. Using the classical VWM-guided attention task with human participants, we found that two VWM items alternately dominate behavioral guidance in theta-rhythmic (4-8 Hz), with anti-correlated activation states in time, and more importantly, this rhythmic oscillation was not driven by the retro-cue processing. Neural recordings revealed that occipital alpha oscillation (8-14 Hz) governed item-specific prioritization, and its amplitude closely tracked subjects' behavioral guidance, while frontal theta-oscillations phase-led and coupled with occipital alpha oscillations during the item transition. Our Rhythmic-Item-Template results not only resolve previous Single-Item-Template versus Multiple-Item-Template debate but also advance our understanding of how distributed brain rhythms coordinate flexible resource allocation in multi-item memory systems.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.