Visual short-term memory and the bilateral field advantage

Past research has demonstrated superior visual processing when the information is distributed across the left and right visual fields rather than within the same single hemifield. This effect is known as the bilateral field advantage (BFA). Recent studies have recently begun to investigate whether a BFA also arises in visual short-term memory (VSTM), with a direct effect on its storage capacity. In other words, the question is whether it is possible to remember more visual objects when they are distributed between the two hemifields than when they are all located within a single one. The goal of this chapter is to provide a synthesis of the current data regarding the possible existence of a BFA in VSTM. Those data reveal that a BFA can be found in spatial short-term memory, namely when the task requires holding spatial information. However, no BFA has been found in object short-term memory (i.e., when the task is to hold detailed visual properties of the objects), unless attentional selective processes are dominantly engaged in the task, suggesting that the BFA is a general feature of selective attention.