Visual information around us is rarely static. To carry out a task in such a dynamic environment, we often have to compare current visual input with our working memory representation of the immediate past. However, little is known about what happens to a working memory (WM) representation when it is compared with perceptual input. Here, we tested university students and found that perceptual comparisons retroactively bias working memory representations toward subjectively-similar perceptual inputs. Furthermore, using computational modeling and individual differences analyses, we found that representational integration between WM representations and perceptually-similar input underlies this similarity-induced memory bias. Together, our findings highlight a novel source of WM distortion and suggest a general mechanism that determines how WM representations interact with new perceptual input.
Working memory relates to individual differences in speech category learning: Insights from computational modeling and pupillometry