AbstractSerial dependence is the effect in which the immediately preceding trial influences participants' responses to the current stimulus. But for how long does this bias last in the absence of interference from other stimuli? Here, we had 20 healthy young adult participants (12 women) perform a coincident timing task using different inter-trial intervals to characterize the serial dependence effect as the time between trials increases. Our results show that serial dependence abruptly

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... s after 1 s inter-trial interval, but it remains pronounced after that for up to 8 s. In addition, participants' response variability slightly decreases over longer intervals. We discuss these results in light of recent models suggesting that serial dependence might rely on a short-term memory trace kept through changes in synaptic weights, which might explain its long duration and apparent stability over time.Statement of RelevanceRecent perceptual and motor experiences bias human behavior. For this serial bias to take place, the brain must keep information for at least the time between events to blend past and current information. Understanding the temporal dynamics of such memory traces might shed light into the short-term memory mechanism and integration of prior and current information. Here, we characterized the temporal dynamics of the serial biases that emerge in a visuomotor task by varying the length of the interval between successive events. Our results show response biases are still present even after intervals as long as 8 s and that participants' response variability decreases over time. Serial dependence thus seems to rely on a memory mechanism that is both long lasting in the absence of interference and stable.