Reactivation of Previous Experiences in a Working Memory Task

• Published in: Psychological science Vol. 30; no. 4; pp. 587 - 595
• Main Authors: Bae, Gi-Yeul, Luck, Steven J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.04.2019; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Electroencephalography; Female; Humans; Indirect effects; Male; Memory, Short-Term; Orientation; Short term memory; Space Perception; Stimulus; Young Adult; ERP decoding; previous trial decoding; open data; working memory; serial dependence
• ISSN: 0956-7976; 1467-9280
• DOI: 10.1177/0956797619830398

Recent experiences influence the processing of new information even when those experiences are irrelevant to the current task. Does this reflect the indirect effects of a passively maintained representation of the previous experience, or is this representation reactivated when a new event occurs? To answer this question, we attempted to decode the orientation of the stimulus on the previous trial from the electroencephalogram on the current trial in a working memory task. Behavioral data confirmed that the previous-trial stimulus orientation influenced the reported orientation on the current trial, even though the previous-trial orientation was now task irrelevant. In two independent experiments, we found that the previous-trial orientation could be decoded from the current-trial electroencephalogram, indicating that the current-trial stimulus reactivated or boosted the representation of the previous-trial orientation. These results suggest that the effects of recent experiences on behavior are driven, in part, by a reactivation of those experiences and not solely by the indirect effects of passive memory traces.