Remembering what is relevant: how is goal-directed memory reactivation supported by attention and working memory?

Goal-directed memory reactivation involves the prioritization of information relevant for the current behavioral goal and it was argued to elicit fronto-parietal network activity. Yet, the exact processes underlying goal-directed memory reactivation remain unclear. We suggest that attention might be a potential candidate fulfilling this role, thus we aimed to examine how attentional mechanisms are involved in goal-directed memory reactivation, by studying cortical activity at the scalp level via electroencephalogram (EEG). We designed an eLTM experiment, in which subjects were required to learn associations between objects and two locations on the screen. In order to capture adaptations to a new set of goals (thus manipulating the goal-directed nature of memory), the relevance of some of the originally encoded locations changed in the second phase of the experiment. As such, subjects were presented two types of cues: the neutral cue suggested that both positions are still relevant, while the selective cue indicated that only one previous location remained relevant. Regarding the EEG correlates, modulations of lateralized alpha-beta and non-lateralized delta-to-theta power, as well as lateralized anterior and posterior event-related components were examined. In addition, multivariate pattern analyses were also adopted. Our results suggest that after initial reactivation from eLTM, attentional mechanisms support the selection of the task-relevant information in line with the behavioral goals. Moreover, we argue that the reactivated location information is temporarily stored in working memory, where attentional processes act upon it. We conclude that these results have important implications with respect to the information exchange between the short-term and long-term memory systems. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.