Prior reward contingencies influence the contents of working memory by biasing attention in space but not in time: Evidence from recognition of sequentially versus simultaneously presented sets of items.

Attention is automatically drawn toward stimulus features that were previously associated with reward. The consequences of reward on memory are less clear, however. Three experiments investigated the effects that prior reward associations have on encoding and recognition in visual working memory. In a training phase, participants searched for one of two colors of target, where one color had a greater reward contingency than the other. In a later task, participants studied sets of three symbols and made old/new judgments on a single test character. Critically, some study lists contained a symbol that was presented in a previously rewarded color. Using drift-diffusion analysis, we found that targets that had been displayed in a high-reward-associated color exhibited higher drift rates compared to targets presented in a low-reward-associated color, but only when the study array was presented simultaneously (Experiment 1) and not when it was presented sequentially (Experiment 2). This combination of results was replicated in Experiment 3 and suggests that reward associations shape the distribution of visual-spatial attention but do not induce differential attention to and rehearsal of the contents of working memory. Prior reward can influence the content of working memory, but only by a gatekeeping process and not by selective rehearsal. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).