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Neural measures reveal individual differences in controlling access to working memory

Author

Listed:
  • Edward K. Vogel

    (University of Oregon)

  • Andrew W. McCollough

    (University of Oregon)

  • Maro G. Machizawa

    (University of Oregon)

Abstract

Concentrates the mind Despite the presence of dozens of objects in the environment, our awareness is limited to only three or four objects at any given time. Because of this extreme limitation, we need to be able to control what reaches awareness so that only the most relevant information in the environment consumes this limited mental resource. A study of brain activity in subjects performing a task in which they were asked to ‘hold in mind’ some of the objects and to ignore other objects has revealed significant variation between individuals in their ability to keep the irrelevant items out of awareness. This shows that our awareness is not determined only by what we can keep ‘in mind’ but also by how good we are at keeping irrelevant things ‘out of mind’. This also implies that an individual's effective memory capacity may not simply reflect storage space, as it does with a hard disk. It may also reflect how efficiently irrelevant information is excluded from using up vital storage capacity.

Suggested Citation

  • Edward K. Vogel & Andrew W. McCollough & Maro G. Machizawa, 2005. "Neural measures reveal individual differences in controlling access to working memory," Nature, Nature, vol. 438(7067), pages 500-503, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:438:y:2005:i:7067:d:10.1038_nature04171
    DOI: 10.1038/nature04171
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Jifan Zhou & Jun Yin & Tong Chen & Xiaowei Ding & Zaifeng Gao & Mowei Shen, 2011. "Visual Working Memory Capacity Does Not Modulate the Feature-Based Information Filtering in Visual Working Memory," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(9), pages 1-10, September.
    2. Johan Liljefors & Rita Almeida & Gustaf Rane & Johan N. Lundström & Pawel Herman & Mikael Lundqvist, 2024. "Distinct functions for beta and alpha bursts in gating of human working memory," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-15, December.
    3. Krieger, Florian & Zimmer, Hubert D. & Greiff, Samuel & Spinath, Frank M. & Becker, Nicolas, 2019. "Why are difficult figural matrices hard to solve? The role of selective encoding and working memory capacity," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 35-48.
    4. Burgoyne, Alexander P. & Mashburn, Cody A. & Tsukahara, Jason S. & Engle, Randall W., 2022. "Attention control and process overlap theory: Searching for cognitive processes underpinning the positive manifold," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    5. Aki Kondo & Jun Saiki, 2012. "Feature-Specific Encoding Flexibility in Visual Working Memory," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(12), pages 1-8, December.
    6. Mohammad Zia Ul Haq Katshu & Giovanni d'Avossa, 2014. "Fine-Grained, Local Maps and Coarse, Global Representations Support Human Spatial Working Memory," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(9), pages 1-13, September.
    7. Jonathan T Mall & Candice C Morey, 2013. "High Working Memory Capacity Predicts Less Retrieval Induced Forgetting," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(1), pages 1-7, January.

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