Confidence and insight into working memories are shaped by attention and recent performance

Working memory (WM) is capacity-limited, and our ability to access information from WM is variable, but selective attention to working memory contents can improve performance. People are able to make introspective judgements regarding the quality of their memories, and these judgements are linked to objective memory performance. However, it remains unknown whether benefits of internally directed attention on memory performance occur alongside commensurate changes in introspective judgments. Across two experiments, we used retrospective cues (retro-cues) during working-memory maintenance to direct attention to items in memory. We then examined their consequence on introspective judgements. In the second experiment, we provided trial-wise feedback on performance. We found that selective attention improved confidence judgements and not just performance of the probed item. We were also able to judge participants’ genuine insight into working-memory contents through the correlation between confidence judgements and memory quality. Neurophysiologically, alpha desynchronization correlated first with memory error and then confidence during retro-cueing, suggesting a sequential process of attentional enhancement of memory contents and introspective insight. Further, we showed that participants can use feedback on the accuracy of confidence judgements to update their beliefs across time, according to performance. Our results emphasize flexibility in working memory by showing we can selectively modulate our confidence about its contents based on internally directed attention or objective feedback.