Hosted by the Wellcome Neural Dynamics PhD Programme
Our daily and intellectual lives depend on our ability to hold information in mind for immediate use. Despite a rich research history, cracking the neuro-cognitive code of such working memory remains one of the most important challenges for neuroscience to date. According to the pre-dominant theoretical stance, maintaining information in working memory requires conscious, effortful activity sustained over the entire delay period.
However, this might reflect only the tip-of-the-iceberg. Recent studies have shed doubt on these long-standing assumptions showing either that (1) even subliminal stimuli may be stored for several seconds in non-conscious working memory and that (2) memories might also be retained in the absence of accompanying neural activity in activity-silent working memory by means of slowly decaying synaptic changes.
During this talk, I will present evidence from a series of behavioral and magnetoencephalography experiments that help to reconcile these diverging frameworks. Specifically, while the short-term maintenance of information may be entirely decoupled from both conscious experience and persistent neural activity, the hallmark feature of working memory – the ability to manipulate information – requires both. As such, these findings provide strong evidence against a genuinely non-conscious ‘working’ memory, and instead point towards the existence of an activity-silent short-term memory. Moreover, they offer a theoretical framework of how both active and/or conscious and activity-silent and/or non-conscious brain processes may interact to support working memory.
- Join via Zoom: https://bristol-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/92144801092?pwd=YVNKeGFFRW1kb09iQnU0MkRIRzV5UT09
- Meeting ID: 921 4480 1092
- Passcode: 225286