Figure 1.

Schematic illustration of a trial’s sequence. Each trial consisted of five parts depicted here by five bright grey columns. The trial started with one of two possible relevance cues indicating which of two tasks would be more important and thus should be focused on during the upcoming trial. Then, participants performed a cued number classification in the retention interval of a working memory task. In the number classification task, participants classified the classification target (one of the digits 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9) via left or right button press. The classification cue indicated which of two classifications should be done. In the working memory task, participants used their mouse to rotate a Gabor patch with random orientation (the memory target) in a previously remembered orientation of a memory item. In each trial, two memory items are shown, one on the left and one on the right side of the screen. The memory cue pointed to the side of the memory item which should be used in the memory task. At the end of each trial, participants perceived feedback based on their performance in both tasks. Performance in the more important task was weighted three times stronger than performance in the less important task. The bright grey numbers under the schematic screens indicate stimuli’s duration on screen. WM working memory.