Working memory signals in early visual cortex are present in weak and strong imagers.

"any additional data and information required to reanalyze the data reported in this paper are available from the lead contact upon reasonable request 2 2 the main analysis workflow of this study (including custom preprocessing steps parameter choices regions of interest (rois) and newly implemented statistical models) was preregistered at https://osf io/34y9z . if strong imagers indeed rely more on imagery signals in early visual cortex to maintain the stimulus across the delay this could lead to two predictions: first sensory information should be represented more accurately in the early visual brain signals of strong as opposed to weak imagers; second sensory information in early visual areas should also be more predictive of an individual's behavioral performance especially in strong imagers2 2 1 original code summary statistics describing the reported data and processed datasets that can be used to recreate the figures in this manuscript have been deposited and are publicly available at https://github com/simonweber91/wm_vi_evc .; due to technical difficulties we were only able to record eye-tracking data of 26 participants (13 per experimental group) 2 8 after the second session participants completed three questionnaires: (i) the vviq (as a post-experimental reference); (ii) the object-spatial imagery questionnaire (osiq; blajenkova et al ) a 30-item questionnaire probing the strength of visual and spatial imagery; and (iii) a simple and purely heuristic strategy questionnaire asking (on a 5-point scale) for the degree to which they had used specific mnemonic strategies to remember the target orientations and complete the task including visual verbal spatial reference to cardinal directions reference to a clock face some kind of individual code or other 2 9 behavioral responses were modeled by fitting a von mises mixture model (vmmm) to the distribution of behavioral response errors (see topfer et al ; original code available at https://github com/joramsoch/rdk_vmmm ). data s1."

"if strong imagers indeed rely more on imagery signals in early visual cortex to maintain the stimulus across the delay this could lead to two predictions: first sensory information should be represented more accurately in the early visual brain signals of strong as opposed to weak imagers; second sensory information in early visual areas should also be more predictive of an individual's behavioral performance especially in strong imagers2 2 1 original code summary statistics describing the reported data and processed datasets that can be used to recreate the figures in this manuscript have been deposited and are publicly available at https://github com/simonweber91/wm_vi_evc .; due to technical difficulties we were only able to record eye-tracking data of 26 participants (13 per experimental group) 2 8 after the second session participants completed three questionnaires: (i) the vviq (as a post-experimental reference); (ii) the object-spatial imagery questionnaire (osiq; blajenkova et al ) a 30-item questionnaire probing the strength of visual and spatial imagery; and (iii) a simple and purely heuristic strategy questionnaire asking (on a 5-point scale) for the degree to which they had used specific mnemonic strategies to remember the target orientations and complete the task including visual verbal spatial reference to cardinal directions reference to a clock face some kind of individual code or other 2 9 behavioral responses were modeled by fitting a von mises mixture model (vmmm) to the distribution of behavioral response errors (see topfer et al ; original code available at https://github com/joramsoch/rdk_vmmm )."

"CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The authors declare no conflicts of interest."

"This study is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) Research Training Group 2386 (S.W.); EXC 2002/1 “Science of Intelligence” (S.W. and K.G.); SFB 940 “Volition and Cognitive Control” (J.‐D.H.); SFB‐TRR 295 “Retuning dynamic motor network disorders using neuromodulation” (J.‐D.H.); the study is supported by BMBF and Max Planck Society. Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL."