Working memory

Question 1

What does Atkinson and Shiffrin say about information acquisition?

Answer 1

Attended information is stored in WM —> Rehearsed information in WM is passed on and encoded as LTM –> LTM information can be retrieved and manipulated as WM later

Question 2

What do Baddeley and Hitch say about working memory?

Answer 2

Seperation between audio and visuo-spatial, motivated by high human efficiency in dual-task paradigms

Question 3

What does Cowan say about working memory?

Answer 3

Negataes distinction between STM and LTM –> STM is explained as an attentional function highlighting relevent information from active LTM

Question 4

Whats up with the capacity of WM and what does this capacity depent on?

Answer 4

It is very limited, only able to store a reduced number of items.
This limit depends on the nature of the items

Question 5

What is the delay match-to-sample task?

Answer 5

Its a task for behavioral experiments to research the neurobiology of WM. This task is paired with electrophysiological techniques to link behavior and neural activity

Question 6

What is WM used for?

Answer 6

To retain the spatial location of a stimulus

Question 7

What do dlPFc recordings during a task tell about WM?

Answer 7

Neurons in the dlPFc have a tuned memory field

Question 8

Where in the brain does manipulation of information in the WM happen?

Answer 8

Prefrontal cortex

Question 9

What is the firing rate model, what are their limitations and advantages?

Answer 9

In this model the activity of a neural network can be described by looking at average properties –> network average firing rate, each population can be modeled with a single equation
- Limitation: There is the assumption that all neurons fire independetly from each other –> low cross-correlations
- Advantages: Very intuitive, useful toy model, analytically tractable

Question 10

What does Compte et al.’s model of WM say?

Answer 10

WM of the spatial cue is encoded and stored by the peak location of bell-shaped persistent activity pattern

Question 11

What are the predictions of Compte’s model?

Answer 11

NMDA is fundamental for (spatial) WM

NOTE: prediction was verified

Question 12

WM as a cognitive function involves a large-scale brain networks.
What is the classical approach to explain this and what is their con?

Answer 12

Local bistability
Cons: Not consistent with observed neuroanatomical heterogeneity (different local properties, different functional time scales)

Question 13

WM as a cognitive function involves a large-scale brain networks.
What does the distributed WM hypothesis say?

Answer 13

Large-scale connections sustain persistent activity in some areas

NOTE: areas with a priori weak local connections can participate in WM

Question 14

How can data on synaptic contact points on each area be used to study anatomical connectivity?

Answer 14

As a proxy of synaptic density to constrain large-scale computational models

Question 15

What is the effect of lesions on DWM?

Answer 15

Memory states are in general more robust to lesions of cortical area in which key areas impact performance

Question 16

What is the effect of distractors on DWM?

Answer 16

Memory states during DWM are more resistant to distractors, achieving robustness levels which are beyon the scope of local WM models