Is long-term memory used in a visuo-spatial change-detection paradigm?

In tests of working memory with verbal or spatial materials, repeating the same memory sets across trials leads to improved memory performance. This well-established “Hebb repetition effect” could not be shown for visual materials in previous research. The absence of the Hebb effect can be explained in two ways: Either persons fail to acquire a long-term memory representation of the repeated memory sets, or they acquire such long-term memory representations, but fail to use them during the working memory task. In two experiments (N(1) = 18 and N(2) = 30), we aimed to decide between these two possibilities by manipulating the long-term memory knowledge of some of the memory sets used in a change-detection task. Before the change-detection test, participants learned three arrays of colors to criterion. The subsequent change-detection test contained both previously learned and new color arrays. Change detection performance was better on previously learned compared with new arrays, showing that long-term memory is used in change detection.