Duygu Yücel¹, Nursena Ataseven¹, Lara Todorova¹, Berna Güler¹, Keisuke Fukuda^2,3, Eren Günseli¹; ¹Department of Psychology, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey, ²Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, ³Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Canada

Many attention models propose that working memory (WM) is crucial for biasing perception towards attentional goals. However, in daily life, we often search for information stored in long-term memory (LTM). We hypothesized that if WM plays a critical role in attentional guidance, it should reactivate attentional goals stored in LTM. To test this, we used the contralateral delay activity (CDA), an electrophysiological marker of WM storage, to compare the recruitment of WM in storing LTM goals during preparation for a visual search task versus a recognition task. CDA amplitude was higher when storing the memory item for recognition than for visual search, suggesting that humans rely more on LTM than WM to store attentional goals. This finding reveals an adaptive strategy: humans offload task goals to LTM during preparation for more demanding tasks to preserve WM resources. This finding challenges models that claim WM is essential for guiding attention, highlighting greater reliance on LTM for attentional guidance.

Acknowledgements: This project is funded by The Scientific and Technological Research Institution of Turkey (TUBITAK - 118C248) provided to Eren Günseli.