EXPRESS: Are latent working memory items retrieved from long-term memory?

Switching one's focus of attention between to-be-remembered information in working memory (WM) is critical for cognition, but the mechanisms by which this is accomplished are unclear. Some models suggest that passively retaining "latent" information outside of focal attention and returning it to the focus involves episodic long-term memory (LTM) retrieval processes even for delays of only a few seconds. We tested this hypothesis by examining performance on both a two-item, double-retrocue WM task (that oriented participants' attention to the item that would be tested first and second on each trial) and subsequent LTM tests for the items from the initial WM task. We compared performance on these tests between older adults (a population with LTM deficits) and young adults with either full (Experiment 1) or divided (Experiment 2) attention during the WM delay periods. Retrocueing, aging, and divided attention all had significant effects on WM performance, but did not interact with or systematically affect subsequent LTM performance for item, location, or associative memory judgments made with either high or low confidence. These dissociations between WM and LTM suggest that LTM retrieval processes are not involved in retaining and reactivating an item outside of focal attention on this two-item, double-retrocue WM paradigm, which has shown neuroimaging, neurostimulation, and neurocomputational modeling evidence for latent WM; rather, the results are consistent with the Dynamic Processing Model of WM (Rose, 2020, Current Directions in Psychological Science).