The storage resources of the active and passive states are independent in visual working memory

Recently, multiple studies have proposed that mnemonic representations can be maintained in qualitatively different neural states in visual working memory (VWM): the active state and the passive state. However, it remains unclear whether the storage resources in the two distinct states are independent of each other. To address this issue, we adopted retro-cue paradigms in Experiments 1 and 2 and a sequential change detection paradigm in Experiment 3 to examine whether memory performance in one storage state was independent of the influence of load variation in the other. The results from these three behavioral experiments showed that load variation in the active state does not affect memory performance in the passive state, and vice versa. The current study provides evidence that active and passive states do not compete for resources to maintain working memory (WM) representations, thus supporting resource dissociation between the two distinct states in VWM.