Abstract

It has long been debated how the limited visual working memory resources are allocated among the items in the storage. The core of this debate can be summarized as to whether the resources are allocated with fixed resolution in the discrete slots or can be flexibly allocated. Here we test whether representation of the visual working memory can be affected by prior information on the number of items to remember. Our results show that in the conditions where prior information is given, the precision of the representation is reduced when observers remember 6 items compared to 3 items. This finding suggests that observers can use the prior information and flexibly allocate the visual working memory resources, possibly setting a task strategy to remember more items by sacrificing the resolution of each item. Thus, our results support the claim that the visual working memory resources are continuous and flexibly allocated.