Theories of attention postulate the existence of an attentional template containing target features in working or long-term memory. Previous research has shown that these internal representations of target features in memory are shifted away from nontarget features and that attention is tuned to the shifted feature especially when the target appeared with similar nontarget items. While previous studies have shown that the target–nontarget relationship has influence on the attentional selection and the representation shift when attentional template is maintained in long-term memory, there is little evidence for such effects when attentional template is stored in working memory. To address this issue, we asked participants to search for a target, which varied from trial to trial (working memory attentional template), or look for the target being stable across trials (long-term memory attentional template). We found that the shifted target features captured attention and that the representations of target features were deviated away from nontarget features when the target template was stored in either working memory or long-term memory. However, such effects were found to be greater for the attentional template in long-term memory. The present results provide evidence that one can encode the target–nontarget relationship even though the target varies from trial to trial, and such contextual information influences attentional selection and target representation shift even under this dynamically changing environment.

注意力理论假设存在包含工作或长期记忆中的目标特征的注意力模板。先前的研究表明，记忆中目标特征的这些内部表示从非目标特征转移，注意力被调整到转移的特征，尤其是当目标出现类似的非目标项目时。虽然先前的研究表明，当注意模板保存在长期记忆中时，目标-非目标关系对注意选择和表征转移有影响，但当注意模板保存在工作记忆中时，几乎没有证据表明这种影响。为了解决这个问题，我们要求参与者寻找一个目标，每个试验都不同（工作记忆注意模板），或寻找在试验中稳定的目标（长期记忆注意模板）。我们发现，当目标模板存储在工作记忆或长期记忆中时，转移的目标特征引起了注意，并且目标特征的表示偏离了非目标特征。然而，发现这种效果对于长期记忆中的注意模板更大。目前的结果提供证据表明，即使目标因试验而异，也可以对目标-非目标关系进行编码，并且即使在这种动态变化的环境下，这种上下文信息也会影响注意力选择和目标表示转移。我们发现，当目标模板存储在工作记忆或长期记忆中时，转移的目标特征引起了注意，并且目标特征的表示偏离了非目标特征。然而，发现这种效果对于长期记忆中的注意模板更大。目前的结果提供证据表明，即使目标因试验而异，也可以对目标-非目标关系进行编码，并且即使在这种动态变化的环境下，这种上下文信息也会影响注意力选择和目标表示转移。我们发现，当目标模板存储在工作记忆或长期记忆中时，转移的目标特征引起了注意，并且目标特征的表示偏离了非目标特征。然而，发现这种效果对于长期记忆中的注意模板更大。目前的结果提供证据表明，即使目标因试验而异，也可以对目标-非目标关系进行编码，并且即使在这种动态变化的环境下，这种上下文信息也会影响注意力选择和目标表示转移。