Shielding working-memory representations from temporally predictable external interference

Abstract

Protecting working-memory content from distracting external sensory inputs and intervening tasks is an ubiquitous demand in daily life. Here, we ask whether and how temporal expectations about external events can help mitigate effects of such interference during working-memory retention. We manipulated the temporal predictability of interfering items that occurred during the retention period of a visual working-memory task and report that temporal expectations reduce the detrimental influence of external interference on subsequent memory performance. Moreover, to determine if the protective effects of temporal expectations rely on distractor suppression or involve shielding of internal representations, we compared effects after irrelevant distractors that could be ignored vs. interrupters that required a response. Whereas distractor suppression may be sufficient to confer protection from predictable distractors, any benefits after interruption are likely to involve memory shielding. We found similar benefits of temporal expectations after both types of interference. We conclude that temporal expectations may play an important role in safeguarding behaviour based on working memory – acting through mechanisms that include the shielding of internal content from external interference.

Consequences of predictable temporal structure in multi-task situations

“…Beyond providing evidence for a between-task consequence of temporal expectations, our study also yields new insights into the dynamic and prospective nature of working memory. Extending a growing literature showing benefits of temporal expectation for working-memory performance Gresch et al, 2021;W. Jin et al, 2020;Olmos-Solis et al, 2017;van Ede et al, 2017;Wilsch et al, 2015Wilsch et al, , 2018Zokaei et al, 2019), our results uniquely demonstrate that performance benefits of temporal expectations during working memory remain robust, even when having to perform an intervening task in the period of anticipation.…”

“…Consequently, the hand required for responding was directly linked to the angle of the bar that was probed. This builds on previous tasks from our lab (Boettcher et al, 2021;Gresch et al, 2021;van Ede et al, 2019), though we note that the specifics of this response implementation were not essential to the current study. Once participants started rotating the dial, they were given only limited time (4000 ms) to complete the angle reproduction.…”

“…The intervening task in the present study may thus be critical for the here-observed effect of temporal expectations on workingmemory performance in the late trials. We recently showed that working memory can be shielded against intervening tasks demands when the intervening task itself can be temporally predicted (Gresch et al, 2021). In a similar vein, having temporal expectations about the memory probe may have helped to shield the working-memory representations from the intervening task, yielding higher ensuing memory accuracy in predictable trials, regardless of whether items would subsequently become probed early or late.…”

“…The desired sample size was set to n = 54, building on a previous online study from our lab that targeted a complementary question using a similar overall task setup (Gresch et al, 2021). To yield the targeted number of participants, we collected data from 75 online participants in total.…”

“…Participants performed a web-based visual working-memory task in which they were required first to memorise the angles of two oriented bars and then, when probed after a retention interval, to reproduce the exact angle of one of those memory items (as in Gresch et al, 2021). In addition, they had to perform an intervening task between encoding of the memory array and retrieval of the probed item (Figure 1A).…”