Electrophysiological evidence for independent consolidation of multiple targets

When observers are asked to identify two targets (T1 and T2) embedded in a rapid serial visual presentation, they frequently fail to identify T2 if it appears 200-500 ms after T1 (attentional blink). The response to T2 is, however, unimpaired if it appears directly after T1 (lag-1 sparing). Furthermore, when another target immediately follows T2, the identification accuracy for the third target is also unimpaired (lag-2 sparing). It was unclear whether multiple targets were consolidated into working memory simultaneously or independently during lag-2 sparing. We observed the P3 component of the event-related potential to examine this issue. Three separable P3 components, corresponding to the three targets, were obtained when lag-2 sparing occurred, suggesting that each target can be consolidated independently.