B.2.8. Conclusion

The present experiments confirmed that increasing the perceptual load decreased the AC, while increasing the executive WM load increased AC, in accordance with Lavie's (2005) hypotheses. They also suggested that even endogenous orienting was disrupted by loading WM. The biased competition principles seem to provide a very powerful framework, very adapted to the present results. Indeed, perceptual load effects, WM effects, and resistance to interference could be construed within this framework. Despite its theoretical appeal, however, this perspective still lacks some experimental support. Particularly, the present work does not allow to decide between inhibitory (e.g. Michael et al., 2006) and non-inhibitory (e.g. Reuter & Kathmann, 2004) accounts of resistance to interference. Thus, future research will have to address this issue directly.