Tradeoffs between item and order information in short-term memory

•The relation between item and order information was studied in short-term memory.•In a single-list procedure, participants prepared for either an item or an order test or both tests.•Two competing hypotheses were contrasted, the conflicting-representation hypothesis and the common-resource hypothesis.•Findings revealed a systematic dual-attention cost that was larger for order than for item information.•The results are accounted for by the common-resource hypothesis.