We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neural codes for representing stimulus information held in different states of priority in working memory. Human participants (male and female) performed delayed recall for 2 oriented gratings that could appear in any of several locations. Priority status was manipulated by a retrocue, such that one became the prioritized memory item (PMI) and another the unprioritized memory item (UMI). Using inverted encoding models (IEMs), we found that, in early visual cortex, the orientation of the UMI was represented in a neural representation that was rotated relative to the PMI. In intraparietal sulcus (IPS), we observed the analogous effect for the representation of the location of the UMI. Taken together, these results provide evidence for a common remapping mechanism that may be responsible for representing stimulus identity and stimulus context with different levels of priority in working memory.

我们使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）来研究代表工作记忆中不同优先级状态下的刺激信息的神经编码。人类参与者（男性和女性）对可能出现在多个位置中任何一个的 2 个定向光栅进行延迟回忆。优先级状态由回溯操作，使得一个成为优先内存项（PMI），另一个成为非优先内存项（UMI）。使用反向编码模型 (IEM)，我们发现，在早期视觉皮层中，UMI 的方向以相对于 PMI 旋转的神经表示形式表示。在顶内沟 (IPS) 中，我们观察到 UMI 位置表示的类似效果。总而言之，这些结果为常见的重新映射机制提供了证据，该机制可能负责在工作记忆中以不同的优先级表示刺激身份和刺激背景。