
Shared spatial trajectories across feature domains are spontaneously leveraged to facilitate working memory storage of multiple sequences through compressed encoding and neural replay.


coremsg

Daily experiences often involve the processing of multiple sequences, yet storing them challenges the limited capacity of working memory (WM). To achieve efficient memory storage, relational structures shared by sequences would be leveraged to reorganize and compress information. Here, participants memorized a sequence of items with different colors and spatial locations and later reproduced the full color and location sequences one after another. Crucially, we manipulated the consistency between location and color sequence trajectories. First, sequences with consistent trajectories demonstrate improved memory performance and a trajectory correlation between reproduced color and location sequences. Second, sequences with consistent trajectories show neural reactivation of common trajectories, and display spontaneous replay of color sequences when recalling locations. Finally, neural reactivation correlates with WM behavior. Our findings suggest that shared common structure is leveraged for storage of multiple sequences through compressed encoding and neural replay, together facilitating efficient information organization in WM.

### Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Shared structure facilitates working memory of multiple sequences

shared-spatial-trajectories-facilitate-working-memory-of-multiple-sequences-through-neural-replay


Shared Spatial Trajectories Facilitate Working Memory of Multiple Sequences Through Neural Replay
