Title: Investigating the relationship between working memory and attention

Speaker: Tobias Egner, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience

Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University

Time: December 1 2016 (Thu) 10:30-12:00

Venue: Room 1113, Wang Kezhen Building

Abstract: The conceptual relationship between the constructs of “working memory” (maintaining and/or manipulating information in mind over a short period of time) and “attention” (prioritizing the processing of a subset of sensory information) in contemporary psychology is murky. In the present talk, I will sketch out an integrative framework for this relationship and present some recent empirical studies that speak to the interaction between working memory and attention in driving behavior. Based on these data, I will argue that we should conceive of working memory as representing internally directed attention, which involves the same representations, resources, and mechanisms as attending to external stimuli.
Host by Prof. Fang Fang