Visual working memory has been shown to integrate different types of information, though it remains unclear whether physical actions are part of these representations. The current study aims to assess this possibility by using electroencephalography (EEG) recordings during a visual working memory task. On every trial, participants memorized the orientation of a bar, received one of two action cues, and reproduced the memorized orientation using the cued action after a memory delay. 

The data were analyzed using a linear discriminant analysis (LDA) to produce class-wise probabilities which were subsequently entered into a representational similarity analysis to assess the presence of stimulus, action, and conjunctive representations. Cluster-based permutation testing revealed a significant stimulus representation after stimulus presentation, a significant action representation after the action cue, and both representations during the response window. However, the conjunctive representation was not found to be significantly present during any part of the trial. 

Afterwards, the association between these scores and behavioral variability was assessed using a linear-mixed effects model. This analysis revealed conjunctive representations to be associated with longer response times during two brief periods within the response window. Therefore, these results provide little evidence to suggest physical actions are integrated into visual working memory as conjunctive stimulus-action representations under the experimental conditions of the current study.