Dennis Boakye¹ (), Khayla Santiago², Chunyue Teng³; ¹Lawrence University

Adaptive behavior often requires the flexible manipulation of task goals maintained in working memory under different task demands. For instance, the same piece of information can be used either as action-guiding content or contextual information. It remains unclear whether working memory representations could be reconfigured depending on their functionality. In this study, we investigated the temporal dynamics of the neural representations of content and context information in visual working memory, using electroencephalography (EEG) on human participants (n=15, ongoing data collection). We contrasted two hypotheses: 1) functional account that content information that necessitates direct action is maintained in a different neural code from the contextual background information; and 2) feature-specific account that the representational state of information in working memory is insensitive to functionality. Participants were asked to memorize the location and orientation of grated patches in two tasks: In the orientation response task (orientation content and location context), they recalled the orientation of the memory sample and reported either the exact memorized orientation or the orthogonal orientation, depending on whether the location of the probe matched the memory sample or not. In the location response task (location content and orientation context), they recalled the memorized location, based on the comparison between the orientation of the probe and that of the memory sample. Using inverted encoding modeling (IEM), we successfully decoded the location of the memory grating during the memory delay period for both task conditions. Cross decoding (i.e., training IEM on one task and applying it to the other task) between task conditions revealed evidence for both hypotheses. While crossing decoding on activity from posterior electrodes was successful consistently throughout the delay, it failed for activity from frontal electrodes quickly after early delay. Results suggest working memory employs both stable and task-specific representations to enable flexible information use.