Presentation Information
[P1-29]Retrieving sequence of duration(s) from working memory
*Yunyun SHEN1, Sophie K Herbst1, Virginie van Wassenhove1 (1. CEA, DRF/Joliot, NeuroSpin; INSERM, Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit; CNRS; Université Paris-Saclay, F-91191 Gif/Yvette, France (France))
Keywords:
time perception,duration,order,working memory,precision
Cognition critically relies on both, working memory (WM) and temporal information. However, how our brain processes temporal information in WM remains largely unresolved. Previous studies have shown that WM load, but not attention, affects the reproduction of time intervals (Church, 1984; Herbst et al., 2025; Teki et al., 2014). Herein, we used a delayed n-item reproduction task in which participants hear a sequence of empty time intervals that they have to reproduce after a retention period. We asked (1) how the length of the retention period affects the reproduction of a stored duration, and (2) whether multiple durations (sequence) interfere with each other in WM.In the first experiment, we manipulated the ratio between the time interval to be reproduced and the retention period. Our data showed that both the retention period and the ratio of the time interval and retention affected WM performance. In the second experiment, we explored the interference between the durations in the sequence by adding a cue indicating whether one interval in the sequence (first or second) or the full sequence of intervals had to be reproduced. The cue could be presented before (pro-cueing) or after (retro-cueing) the retention period. We found that a primacy effect on reproduction precision only occurs when retro-cueing for a long duration: the reproduced long duration was more precise in the first position. Additionally, our results show that participants initiated their reproduction faster for the first interval in the sequence than for the second one, independently of their durations. Overall, our study suggests that both the retention period and interference with other remembered intervals can affect the representation of duration in working memory.