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Recent neurophysiological and imaging studies have investigated how neural representations underlying working memory (WM) are dynamically updated for objects presented sequentially. Although such studies implicate information encoded in oscillatory activity across distributed brain networks, interpretation of findings depends crucially on the underlying conceptual model of how memory resources are distributed.

Here, we quantify the fidelity of human memory for sequences of colored stimuli of different orientation. The precision with which each orientation was recalled declined with increases in total memory load, but also depended on when in the sequence it appeared. When one item was prioritized, its recall was enhanced, but with corresponding decrements in precision for other objects. Comparison with the same number of items presented simultaneously revealed an additional performance cost for …