研究表明视觉工作记忆表征与视觉搜索中的目标匹配时，会对视觉搜索产生促进效应；与视觉搜索中的分心物匹配时，会对视觉搜索产生阻碍效应。这种促进效应和阻碍效应统称为视觉工作记忆表征在视觉搜索中的注意引导效应。本研究主要关注多个视觉工作记忆表征在视觉搜索中的注意引导效应，围绕四个问题展开：（1）多个视觉工作记忆表征在视觉搜索中能否引导注意？（2）如果多个视觉工作记忆表征在视觉搜索中能够引导注意，那么它们是如何引导的：通过单个激活的视觉工作记忆模板（单项目模板模型）还是多个同时激活的视觉工作记忆模板（多项目模板模型）？（3）多个视觉工作记忆表征在视觉搜索中引导注意的影响因素有哪些？（4）多个视觉工作记忆表征引导注意的内部机制和时间进程是怎样的？即假如多个视觉工作记忆表征同时处于激活状态，且在视觉搜索中能引导注意，那么它们在视觉工作记忆系统中的激活程度是否相同？激活状态的时间进程是怎样的？ 研究一从基于特征匹配的视角，探讨视觉工作记忆中的多个相同维度的特征在视觉搜索中能否及如何引导注意，包含两个实验。结果发现：在线条方向搜索任务中，视觉工作记忆中两个颜色特征与视觉搜索分心物匹配时，没有引导注意；在难度更大的缺口搜索任务中，视觉工作记忆中两个颜色特征与视觉搜索中的分心物匹配时，引导了注意，且表现出的引导效应模式支持多项目模板模型。 研究二从基于特征匹配的视角，探讨视觉工作记忆中的多个不同维度特征在视觉搜索中能否及如何引导注意，包含两个实验。结果发现，两个不同维度的特征 (一个颜色特征和一个形状特征)与视觉搜索分心物匹配时，颜色特征处于激活状态且在视觉搜索中引导了注意，形状特征没有引导注意；当采用线索化的方式提高形状特征在视觉工作记忆中的地位时，两者同时处于激活状态且分别对注意产生引导效应，支持多项目模板模型。 研究三从基于客体匹配的视角，探讨视觉工作记忆中多个单特征客体在视觉搜索中能否及如何引导注意，包含四个实验。结果发现：视觉工作记忆中两个形状客体和两个颜色客体与视觉搜索分心物匹配时，能够引导注意，但引导效应的模式不相同，形状客体所产生的引导效应模式支持单项目模板模型，颜色客体所产生的引导效应模式支持多项目模板模型； 研究四从基于客体匹配的视角，采用双特征组合客体作为视觉工作记忆材料，探讨视觉工作记忆中多个组合客体在视觉搜索中的注意引导效应，包含两个实验。结果发现：视觉工作记忆中的多个双特征组合客体与视觉搜索分心物匹配时，对注意产生了强烈的引导效应，且其引导效应的模式符合多项目模板模型的假设，即使采用更严格标准的“引导效应对比法”，也与多项目模板模型对引导效应的假设一致。此外，本研究还对比了研究三和研究四中所使用的视觉工作记忆中三种不同类型客体（形状、颜色、组合客体）对注意的引导效应，发现双特征组合客体和颜色客体对注意的引导效应大于形状客体的引导效应。 研究五在前四个研究基础上进一步探讨视觉搜索任务类型、记忆刺激与搜索刺激间的匹配类型对多个视觉工作记忆表征在视觉搜索中的注意引导效应的影响，并初步探讨多个视觉工作记忆表征同时引导注意的内部机制和时间进程，包含三个实验。结果发现：视觉搜索任务类型和匹配类型对多个视觉工作记忆表征引导注意有很大影响。此外，通过对多个视觉工作记忆表征同时引导注意的内部机制和时间进程的探讨发现，两个视觉工作记忆表征在视觉搜索中的注意引导效应量相同，且具有时间上的稳定性。表明视觉工作记忆资源是平均分配给两个同样与任务无关（与视觉搜索任务无关）的表征，两者在视觉工作记忆系统中的激活程度相同且不受记忆编码时间的影响。 基于以上研究得出如下结论：（1）多个视觉工作记忆表征（多个相同维度的特征、多个不同维度的特征、多个客体）在视觉搜索中能够引导注意；（2）多个视觉工作记忆表征（多个相同维度的特征、多个不同维度的特征、多个客体）在视觉搜索中的注意引导效应来自于多个同时激活的视觉工作记忆模板，支持了视觉工作记忆表征引导注意的多项目模板模型；（3）多个视觉工作记忆表征在视觉搜索中的注意引导效应受视觉搜索任务类型、匹配刺激特性和匹配类型的影响；（4）两个任务无关的表征存储在视觉工作记忆中时，视觉工作记忆资源平均分配给每个表征，使两者在视觉工作记忆系统中的激活程度相同，且激活状态具有时间上的稳定性。 本研究有以下创新点：首先，首次从基于特征匹配的视角和基于客体匹配的视角分开探讨多个视觉工作记忆表征在视觉搜索中的注意引导效应，并对比不同匹配刺激或匹配类型下多个视觉工作记忆表征对注意引导效应的不同，为多个视觉工作记忆表征能否引导注意提供证据的同时，丰富和细化了该领域的研究；其次，在以往研究的基础上，提出了一种更完善的方法对单项目模板模型和多项目模板模型进行检验，为多个视觉工作记忆表征在视觉搜索中如何引导注意提供强有力证据的同时，也为后续研究提供了方法上的参考。再次，关于多个视觉工作记忆表征在视觉搜索中能否同时引导注意，以往研究结果不一，但却没有研究探讨结果不一致的原因，本研究发现视觉搜索任务、匹配刺激的特性及匹配类型可能会影响多个视觉工作记忆表征能否同时引导注意的结论，调和了目前关于单项目模板模型和多项目模板模型的争论。最后，首次探讨多个任务无关的视觉工作记忆表征同时引导注意的内部机制和时间进程，发现当两个任务无关的表征存储在视觉工作记忆中时，单个表征在视觉搜索中对注意的引导效应量相等，说明这两个表征在视觉工作记忆中被分配的资源相当，激活程度相当，且这种激活状态具有时间上的稳定性。对内部机制的探讨为进一步的认知神经机制研究奠定了基础。

Studies showed that representations in visual working memory (VWM) could bias attentional selection by facilitating or disturbing search task when they matched with search target or search distractors in the visual field. The present study aims to systematically discuss whether and how multiple representations in VWM guide attention, what factors may influence the pattern of the guidance effects from multiple representations in VWM and the internal mechanism behind that. Specifically: (1) Whether there exist memory-based attentional guidance when multiple representations are held in VWM; (2) If there exists memory-based attentional guidance when multiple representations are held in VWM, how they influence on attention: through one active template or multiple simultaneously active templates in VWM; (3) What factors influence the pattern of memory-based attentional guidance effects from multiple representations in VWM; (4) If multiple representations in VWM can be active to guide attention simultaneously, are they equally activated so that they may produce equal guidance effect on attention. Study 1 mainly concerned whether and how multiple features from the same dimension in VWM could guide attention by manipulating feature-based match between the contents in VWM and stimuli in the search array. Study 1 includes two experiments. Results showed that two features from the same dimension could be active simultaneously to guide attention in a gap-location, but this effect disappeared in an easier line-search task. Study 2 concerned whether and how multiple features from the different dimensions in VWM could guide attention by manipulating feature-based match. Results showed that although only color feature could be active to guide attention at first, both color and shape would be active simultaneously to guide attention once the shape was prioritized by a retro-cue, which is also in line with the multiple--item-template hypothesis. Study 3 mainly concerned whether and how multiple objects composed by single features in VWM could guide attention by manipulating object-based match. Study 3 includes four experiments. Results showed that both two shapes and two colors in VWM could guide attention when matched with search distractors. But the pattern of the guidance effect from shape and color showed difference: two colors could be active simultaneously to guide attention, which supports the multiple-item-template hypothesis; while the pattern of the guidance effects from two shapes in VWM tend to supports the single-item-template hypothesis. Study 4 further used stronger memory representations of conjunction objects to discuss whether and how multiple objects could guide attention by manipulating object-based match, which includes three experiments. Results showed that the pattern of the guidance effect from multiple conjunction objects in VWM was perfectly consistent with the multiple-item-template hypothesis, and against the single-item -template hypothesis, even using more strict comparison standard. Further, by comparing the guidance effect for three types of objects (shapes, colors, and conjunctions) in Study 3 and 4, we observed that guidance effect was stronger for conjunction and color objects than that for shape, which may indicate that the type of the memory-matching stimuli may matter in observing the pattern of the guidance effects from multiple representations in VWM. Based on the Study 1, 2, 3, and 4, Study 5 further discussed the influencing factors and internal mechanisms of multiple VWM-based attentional guidance effect, including four experiments. Results showed that the difficulty of search tasks and the type of memory-matching stimuli rather than the interval time between memory task and search task influenced the pattern of guidance effects from multiple representations in VWM. In addition, we tried to investigate the internal mechanism of attentional guidance from multiple active templates in VWM by answering the question that if multiple representations in VWM could be active to guide attention simultaneously, are they equally activated so that they may produce equal guidance effect on attention. Results showed that each of the representation in VWM produced equal guidance effect on attention when they separately matched with one of the search distractors in the search task, which indicated that each of the representation was allocated equal VWM resource and equally activated when two task-irrelevant representations in VWM were held. In general, four conclusions are obtained in the present study. (1) Multiple representations (such as two features for the same or different dimensions, or two objects) can guide attention when they match with one or two search distractors in the search array. (2) The guidance effect from multiple representations comes from two simultaneously active template in VWM, which supports the multiple-item-template hypothesis. (3) The pattern of the guidance effects from multiple representations in VWM is influenced by the difficulty of the search task and the type of memory-matching stimuli. (4) Two task-irrelevant representations in VWM can be equally activated to produce equivalent guidance effect on attention, and the guidance effect is independent of the interval time between memory task and search task. There are mainly four contributions for the present study to this research area. First, the present study firstly investigated attentional guidance effect from multiple representations in VWM by dividing feature-based match and object-based match and tried to discuss their difference, which enriches the studies on attentional guidance from multiple representations in VWM; Second, the present study proposed a modified and thorough method to make a direct contrast between the single-item-template hypothesis and the multiple-item-template hypothesis, which not only provided further evidence for whether multiple items could be active simultaneously to guide attention, and proposed a new method for the future study. Further, although there were controversial conclusions on whether and how multiple representations in VWM could guide attention, few study investigated the reason for inconsistency. The present study addressed some important influencing factors that might lead to the inconsistency in the literature, which offers an integrative view to reconcile the argument of the single-item-template hypothesis and the multiple-item-template hypothesis. Lastly, the present study tried to discuss the internal mechanism of attentional guidance from multiple task-irrelevant representations in VWM. Results showed that each representation in VWM produced equal guidance effect on attention whenever in short or long interval time between VWM task and search task, indicating that each of them is equally activated in VWM and the active state of each representation is independent of encoding time in VWM.