Flexible codes and loci of visual working memory
Neural correlates of visual working memory have been found in early visual, parietal, and prefrontal regions. These findings have spurred fruitful debate over how and where in the brain memories might be represented. Here, I will present data from multiple experiments to demonstrate how a focus on behavioral requirements can unveil a more comprehensive understanding of the visual working memory system. Specifically, items in working memory must be maintained in a highly robust manner, resilient to interference. At the same time, storage mechanisms must preserve a high degree of flexibility in case of changing behavioral goals. Several examples will be explored in which visual memory representations are shown to undergo transformations, and even shift their cortical locus alongside their coding format based on specifics of the task.
Reasoning Ability: Neural Mechanisms, Development, and Plasticity
Relational thinking, or the process of identifying and integrating relations between mental representations, is regularly invoked during reasoning. This mental capacity enables us to draw higher-order abstractions and generalize across situations and contexts, and we have argued that it should be included in the pantheon of executive functions. In this talk, I will briefly review our lab's work characterizing the roles of lateral prefrontal and parietal regions in relational thinking. I will then discuss structural and functional predictors of individual differences and developmental changes in reasoning.
Flexible codes and loci of visual working memory
Neural correlates of visual working memory have been found in early visual, parietal, and prefrontal regions. These findings have spurred fruitful debate over how and where in the brain memories might be represented. Here, I will present data from multiple experiments to demonstrate how a focus on behavioral requirements can unveil a more comprehensive understanding of the visual working memory system. Specifically, items in working memory must be maintained in a highly robust manner, resilient to interference. At the same time, storage mechanisms must preserve a high degree of flexibility in case of changing behavioral goals. Several examples will be explored in which visual memory representations are shown to undergo transformations, and even shift their cortical locus alongside their coding format based on specifics of the task.