| Özet: | <p>Memories are built from past experiences, but they continue to carry meaning and weight through to the present and future. The way in which we learn impacts not only how we remember but also how we perceive in the present moment. It is well established that memory is important for attentional guidance, as is attention for directing selective retrieval, yet these two abilities have primarily been studied separately. Therefore, our understanding of how memory guides recall compared to attentional orienting is lacking. In this thesis, I measured the formation of associative memories between target objects and scenes during visual search tasks and then probed how variations in learning parameters impacted subsequent performance. The search tasks differed based in the number of targets associated with each scene (Chapter 2), the type of spatial association (Chapter 3), or the spatial predictability of targets and distractors (Chapter 4). Recall and/or attentional-orienting tasks tested the relative influence of these different learning manipulations on future performance. Contrary to my hypotheses, competition among items associated with the same scene had little impact on memory recall. The type of association and predictability of items associated with scenes had significant impacts on both subsequent recall and attentional-orienting tasks. Interestingly, the patterns of influence were functionally dissociable. Memory recall was versatile: different types of associations and spatial expectations facilitated memory recall depending on the congruency between learning and recall demands. Instead, the pattern of memory-guided attentional orienting was more consistent and strongly dependent on spatial expectations pertaining to target objects. The thesis opens with a literature review on the relationship between visual search, memory recall, and attentional orienting (Chapter 1). The empirical chapters follow (Chapters 2 through 4). The final chapter discusses the implications of the studies and how they can facilitate future research.</p>
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