Most daily tasks require frequent information exchange between working memory (WM) and long-term memory (LTM). However, the factors that modulate the reactivation of LTMs in WM remain to be explored. Here, we tested the effects of anticipated perceptual interference on reactivation using contralateral delay activity (CDA) in the EEG. On each trial, participants saw a previously studied object that was tested after a brief retention interval. In half of the blocks, the retention contained perceptual distractors. Half of the participants had larger CDA on interference blocks (WM preparers) and others on no interference blocks (LTM preparers). WM preparers showed smaller interference costs in accuracy suggesting that preparing against interference via reactivating LTMs in WM is a more effective strategy than relying on passive LTMs. Moreover, in interference blocks, contralateral alpha suppression, an index of spatial attention, disappeared during retention in anticipation of interference, mostly in WM preparers. These results indicate that individuals stopped attending to reactivated memories when anticipating interference, presumably to prevent the involuntary encoding of perceptual distractors that appear at attended locations. Together, these results highlight individual differences in preparing for anticipated interference in recruiting WM to store LTMs, and their effects on proneness to interference.

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Episodic memory retrieval is crucial for survival and can be impaired by divided attention. However, since memory retrieval consists of different stages, divided attention can impair each stage uniquely, leading to retrieval failures. It is important to acknowledge the multistage characteristics of episodic memory retrieval to understand the cognitive mechanisms that mediate the relationship between memory retrieval and divided attention. Here we attempt to unravel the role of divided attention in gating the access to long-term memories through its unique impact on a non-exhaustive list of six stages of a memory retrieval task: processing of retrieval cue, initiating a retrieval mode, searching for the target memory, retrieving, and reactivating the target memory, decision-making, and motor preparation to produce a response. We describe how each stage might be affected by divided attention. To do so, we review not only studies on memory retrieval but also areas that constitute different stages described above given the lack of extensive research that explores the role of attention for each stage. We hope this work will contribute to carefully controlling and manipulating how different stages are affected by attention, which in turn will improve our understanding of the relationship between attention and memory retrieval.