Long-term effects of working memory retrieval from prioritized and deprioritized states.

ABSTRACT: Which factors determine whether information temporarily held in working memory (WM) can later be remembered from long-term memory (LTM)? Previous work has shown that retrieving ("testing") memories from LTM can benefit their future LTM recall. Here, we examined the extent to which a benefit for subsequent LTM may also occur after retrieval from WM, depending on whether the WM contents were retrieved from a prioritized or deprioritized state. In three experiments (n = 383 participants), we combined variants of a visual WM paradigm with a subsequent surprise LTM recall test. We found a LTM benefit of WM testing both for prioritized and deprioritized WM contents, which, interestingly, was stronger for the deprioritized information. This pattern showed similarly across experiments with differe

SUBMITTER: Born F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12913606 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature