Deep in thought while on your way to work? Better watch out, or it’s a recipe for disaster! Yet, people are able to daydream and hold images in mind effortlessly, with eyes open. But when you also need to attend your surroundings, it gets tricky… Why? ⏰TWEEPRINT ALERT! ⏰1/n

Everyday life typically requires visual memory when there are concurrent visual inputs. Together with John Serences, we found out a while back that we can use fMRI to decode the contents of visual working memory from early sensory cortex, even during such concurrent visual input. 2/n

But everyday life also requires attention to the environment, so you can navigate it safely. When you hold an image in mind, this often happens concurrently with attention to visual inputs! Can visual cortex concurrently process competing top-down demands? 3/n

We scanned people over the course of several days. While they remembered an orientation, we showed another stimulus on the screen. This distractor had several small changes in its contrast or orientation on every trial. We manipulated just one thing: Attention. 4/n

Recall of the remembered orientation was worse when attention was diverted towards changes in distractor contrast and orientation. Univariate BOLD was also higher with attention, compared to when the distractor was ignored. 5/n

So, does attention negatively impact decoding of the orientation held in memory? Yes it does! Throughout the visual hierarchy we see a hit to decoding of the remembered target when attention is paid to the distractor 6/n

And what about the distractor itself, which is directly perceived throughout the delay? We show that attention actually enhances these sensory representations, especially when distractor orientation is attended. 7/n