From the conception of Baddeley's visuospatial sketchpad, visual working memory and visual attention have been closely linked concepts. An attractive model has advocated unity of the two cognitive functions, with attention serving the active maintenance of sensory representations. However, empirical evidence from various paradigms and dependent measures has now firmly established an at least partial dissociation between visual attention and visual working memory maintenance – thus leaving unclear what the relationship between the two concepts is. Moreover, a focus on sensory storage has treated visual working memory as a reflection of the past, with attention as a limiting resource. This view ignores what storage is for: immediate or future action. We argue that rather than serving sensory storage, attention emerges from coupling relevant sensory and action representations within working memory. Importantly, this coupling is bidirectional: First, through recurrent feedback mechanisms, action coupling results in the enhancement of the appropriate sensory memory representation. Under this view, unattended memories are currently not coupled to an action plan, but are not necessarily lost and remain available for future tasks when necessary. Second, through the very same feedback projections, attention serves as the credit assignment mechanism for the action's outcome. When the action is successful, the associated representations are being reinforced, leading to more robust consolidation and more rapid retrieval in the future – thus explaining performance benefits for attended memories without assuming that attention serves as the maintenance mechanism. By firmly grounding VWM in the action system, the new framework integrates a range of behavioural and neurophysiological findings and avoids circularity in explaining the role of attention in working memory.

从Baddeley的视觉空间画板的概念开始，视觉工作记忆和视觉注意力已成为紧密联系的概念。一个有吸引力的模型提倡两种认知功能的统一，而注意力则用于主动维持感觉表现。但是，来自各种范式和相关措施的经验证据现在已经牢固地建立了视觉注意力和视觉工作记忆维持之间的至少部分分离，因此尚不清楚这两个概念之间的关系。此外，对感觉存储的关注已将视觉工作记忆视为过去的反映，而注意力则作为限制资源。该视图忽略了什么存储空间：立即或将来的操作。我们认为，与其为感官存储服务，通过在工作记忆中耦合相关的感觉和动作表示，人们的注意力开始显现。重要的是，这种耦合是双向的：首先，通过递归反馈机制，动作耦合导致适当的感觉记忆表示的增强。在这种观点下，无人值守的记忆目前并未与行动计划挂钩，但不一定会丢失，在必要时仍可用于将来的任务。第二，通过相同的反馈预测，注意力可以作为行动结果的信用分配机制。当操作成功时，相关的表示将得到加强，从而在将来实现更强大的合并和更快速的检索-从而解释了有人参与的内存的性能优势，而无需假定注意力是维持机制。通过将VWM牢固地扎根于动作系统，新框架整合了一系列行为和神经生理学发现，并避免了在解释注意力在工作记忆中的作用时出现循环现象。