Effects of context changes on memory reactivation

Abstract

The efficient utilization of limited working memory (WM) resources involves transferring task-relevant information to long-term memory (LTM) through repetition. While the interaction between context and LTM has been extensively studied, its influence on the dynamics between WM and LTM is less understood. In this study, we explored these dynamics using a delayed match-to-sample task, where participants encountered the same target object across six consecutive trials, facilitating the transition from WM to LTM. Notably, during half of these target repetitions, the background color changed. To measure the WM storage of the target, we analyzed the contralateral delay activity (CDA) in electroencephalography (EEG). Our results showed that a task-irrelevant context change triggers the reactivation of LTM in WM. This reactivation may be attributed to content-context binding in WM and hippocampal pattern separation.