Long-term memory retrieval bypasses working memory

Baiwei Liu; Xinyu Li; Jan Theeuwes; Benchi Wang

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119513

Long-term memory retrieval bypasses working memory

Baiwei Liu, Xinyu Li, Jan Theeuwes, Benchi Wang^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

For decades, it has been assumed that when humans retrieve information from long-term memory (LTM), information need first to be brought back into working memory (WM). However, as WM capacity is limited, it is unclear what happens if information from LTM needs to be retrieved while WM is fully engaged? To address this question, observers had to retrieve colors from LTM while WM storage capacity was fully engaged. The behavioral results showed that retrieving information from LTM is possible even when WM capacity is fully occupied. Additional evidence from electroencephalogram (EEG) confirmed that WM was fully engaged as the suppression of alpha oscillation reached its maximum when memorizing the maximum amount of information into WM; yet the suppression in alpha oscillation was even further amplified when items were retrieved simultaneously from LTM, providing a neural signature of additional LTM retrieval capacity above and beyond the maximum WM capacity. Together, our findings indicate that information retrieved from LTM does not always have to be brought back into WM, but instead might be accessed through a different mechanism when WM is fully engaged.

Original language	English
Article number	119513
Pages (from-to)	1-10
Number of pages	10
Journal	NeuroImage
Volume	261
Early online date	23 Jul 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119513
Publication status	Published - 1 Nov 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
JT and BW both act as senior authors. All authors designed the experiment, BL collected and analyzed the data, BL, JT, and BW wrote the paper. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission and declared no competing financial interests. This research was supported by the Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province ( 2019B030335001 ), the Guangdong Regional Joint Foundation ( 2019A1515110581 ), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grant ( 32000738 ) to BW, the European Research Council (ERC) advanced grant 833029 –(LEARNATTEND) to JT. Correspondence should be addressed to Benchi Wang, Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Zhongshan Road West 55, Guangzhou, China, 510000. Email: [email protected] .

Funding Information:
JT and BW both act as senior authors. All authors designed the experiment, BL collected and analyzed the data, BL, JT, and BW wrote the paper. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission and declared no competing financial interests. This research was supported by the Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (2019B030335001), the Guangdong Regional Joint Foundation (2019A1515110581), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grant (32000738) to BW, the European Research Council (ERC) advanced grant 833029 –(LEARNATTEND) to JT. Correspondence should be addressed to Benchi Wang, Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Zhongshan Road West 55, Guangzhou, China, 510000. Email: [email protected].

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors

Funding

JT and BW both act as senior authors. All authors designed the experiment, BL collected and analyzed the data, BL, JT, and BW wrote the paper. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission and declared no competing financial interests. This research was supported by the Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province ( 2019B030335001 ), the Guangdong Regional Joint Foundation ( 2019A1515110581 ), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grant ( 32000738 ) to BW, the European Research Council (ERC) advanced grant 833029 –(LEARNATTEND) to JT. Correspondence should be addressed to Benchi Wang, Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Zhongshan Road West 55, Guangzhou, China, 510000. Email: [email protected] . JT and BW both act as senior authors. All authors designed the experiment, BL collected and analyzed the data, BL, JT, and BW wrote the paper. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission and declared no competing financial interests. This research was supported by the Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (2019B030335001), the Guangdong Regional Joint Foundation (2019A1515110581), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grant (32000738) to BW, the European Research Council (ERC) advanced grant 833029 –(LEARNATTEND) to JT. Correspondence should be addressed to Benchi Wang, Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Zhongshan Road West 55, Guangzhou, China, 510000. Email: [email protected].

Funders	Funder number
European Research Council
National Natural Science Foundation of China	32000738
Special Project for Research and Development in Key areas of Guangdong Province	2019B030335001
South China Normal University	510000
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme	833029
Guangdong Regional Joint Foundation	2019A1515110581

Keywords

Alpha suppression
Long-term memory
Memory capacity
Working memory

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10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119513

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title = "Long-term memory retrieval bypasses working memory",

abstract = "For decades, it has been assumed that when humans retrieve information from long-term memory (LTM), information need first to be brought back into working memory (WM). However, as WM capacity is limited, it is unclear what happens if information from LTM needs to be retrieved while WM is fully engaged? To address this question, observers had to retrieve colors from LTM while WM storage capacity was fully engaged. The behavioral results showed that retrieving information from LTM is possible even when WM capacity is fully occupied. Additional evidence from electroencephalogram (EEG) confirmed that WM was fully engaged as the suppression of alpha oscillation reached its maximum when memorizing the maximum amount of information into WM; yet the suppression in alpha oscillation was even further amplified when items were retrieved simultaneously from LTM, providing a neural signature of additional LTM retrieval capacity above and beyond the maximum WM capacity. Together, our findings indicate that information retrieved from LTM does not always have to be brought back into WM, but instead might be accessed through a different mechanism when WM is fully engaged.",

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author = "Baiwei Liu and Xinyu Li and Jan Theeuwes and Benchi Wang",

note = "Funding Information: JT and BW both act as senior authors. All authors designed the experiment, BL collected and analyzed the data, BL, JT, and BW wrote the paper. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission and declared no competing financial interests. This research was supported by the Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province ( 2019B030335001 ), the Guangdong Regional Joint Foundation ( 2019A1515110581 ), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grant ( 32000738 ) to BW, the European Research Council (ERC) advanced grant 833029 –(LEARNATTEND) to JT. Correspondence should be addressed to Benchi Wang, Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Zhongshan Road West 55, Guangzhou, China, 510000. Email: [email protected] . Funding Information: JT and BW both act as senior authors. All authors designed the experiment, BL collected and analyzed the data, BL, JT, and BW wrote the paper. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission and declared no competing financial interests. This research was supported by the Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (2019B030335001), the Guangdong Regional Joint Foundation (2019A1515110581), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grant (32000738) to BW, the European Research Council (ERC) advanced grant 833029 –(LEARNATTEND) to JT. Correspondence should be addressed to Benchi Wang, Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Zhongshan Road West 55, Guangzhou, China, 510000. Email: [email protected]. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 The Authors",

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N2 - For decades, it has been assumed that when humans retrieve information from long-term memory (LTM), information need first to be brought back into working memory (WM). However, as WM capacity is limited, it is unclear what happens if information from LTM needs to be retrieved while WM is fully engaged? To address this question, observers had to retrieve colors from LTM while WM storage capacity was fully engaged. The behavioral results showed that retrieving information from LTM is possible even when WM capacity is fully occupied. Additional evidence from electroencephalogram (EEG) confirmed that WM was fully engaged as the suppression of alpha oscillation reached its maximum when memorizing the maximum amount of information into WM; yet the suppression in alpha oscillation was even further amplified when items were retrieved simultaneously from LTM, providing a neural signature of additional LTM retrieval capacity above and beyond the maximum WM capacity. Together, our findings indicate that information retrieved from LTM does not always have to be brought back into WM, but instead might be accessed through a different mechanism when WM is fully engaged.

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Long-term memory retrieval bypasses working memory

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

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