Our attention is critically important for what we remember. Prior measures of the relationship between attention and memory, however, have largely treated “attention” as a monolith. Here, across three experiments, we provide evidence for two dissociable aspects of attention that influence encoding into long-term memory. Using spatial cues together with a sensitive continuous report procedure, we find that long-term memory response error is affected by both trial-by-trial fluctuations of sustained attention and prioritization via covert spatial attention. Furthermore, using multivariate analyses of EEG, we track both sustained attention and spatial attention before stimulus onset. Intriguingly, even during moments of low sustained attention, there is no decline in the representation of the spatially attended location, showing that these two aspects of attention have robust but independent effects on long-term memory encoding. Finally, sustained and spatial attention predicted distinct variance in long-term memory performance across individuals. That is, the relationship between attention and long-term memory suggests a composite model, wherein distinct attentional subcomponents influence encoding into long-term memory. These results point toward a taxonomy of the distinct attentional processes that constrain our memories.

我们的注意力对于我们记住的东西至关重要。然而，先前对注意力和记忆之间关系的测量在很大程度上将“注意力”视为一个整体。在这里，通过三个实验，我们为影响编码成长期记忆的注意力的两个可分离方面提供了证据。使用空间线索和敏感的连续报告程序，我们发现长期记忆反应错误受到持续注意的反复试验波动和通过隐蔽空间注意的优先级的影响。此外，使用 EEG 的多变量分析，我们在刺激开始之前跟踪持续注意力和空间注意力。有趣的是，即使在持续关注度较低的时刻，空间参与位置的代表性也没有下降，表明注意力的这两个方面对长期记忆编码具有强大但独立的影响。最后，持续和空间注意力预测了个体之间长期记忆表现的明显差异。也就是说，注意力和长期记忆之间的关系表明了一个复合模型，其中不同的注意力子成分影响编码到长期记忆中。这些结果指向了限制我们记忆的不同注意过程的分类。其中不同的注意力子成分影响编码成长期记忆。这些结果指向了限制我们记忆的不同注意过程的分类。其中不同的注意力子成分影响编码成长期记忆。这些结果指向了限制我们记忆的不同注意过程的分类。