Working memory (WM) performance can be enhanced by an informative cue presented during storage. This effect, termed a retrocue benefit, can be used to explore how observers prioritize information stored in WM. Recent studies have demonstrated that neural representations of task-relevant memoranda are strengthened following a retrocue, suggesting that participants can supplement active memory traces with information from other memory stores. We sought to better understand these additional store(s) by asking whether they are subject to the same temporal degradation seen in active memory representations during storage. We tested this possibility by reconstructing and quantifying representations of remembered positions from EEG activity while varying the interval separating an encoding display and retrocue during a spatial WM task. We observed a significant increase in the quality of location-specific representations following a retrocue, but the magnitude of this benefit was linearly and inversely related to the timing of the retrocue such that later cues yielded smaller increases. This result suggests that participants' ability to supplement active memory representations with information from additional memory stores is not static: the information maintained in these stores may be subject to temporal degradation, or these stores may become more difficult to access over time.

中文翻译：

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随着时间的推移，从潜在内存存储中恢复信息的速度会下降。

在存储过程中可以通过提供提示性信息来增强工作内存（WM）的性能。这种效应被称为追溯收益，可用于探索观察者如何优先考虑WM中存储的信息。最近的研究表明，与任务相关的备忘录的神经表示在追溯之后得到了增强，这表明参与者可以用其他记忆存储中的信息来补充活动记忆轨迹。我们试图通过询问它们在存储期间是否受到活动内存表示中所见的相同时间退化，从而更好地理解这些其他存储。我们通过重建和量化脑电活动记忆位置的表示来测试这种可能性，同时改变在空间WM任务期间分隔编码显示和追溯的间隔。我们观察到，在追溯之后，特定于位置的表示的质量显着提高，但是，这种收益的大小与追溯的时间呈线性和反相关关系，因此以后的提示产生的幅度较小。该结果表明，参与者用来自其他存储器的信息补充活动存储器表示的能力不是一成不变的：这些存储器中维护的信息可能会随时间而降级，或者随着时间的推移这些存储器可能变得更加难以访问。