Descripción del proyecto
Cómo la memoria funcional visual «prepara para la acción»
Nuestra capacidad de mantener activa la información en nuestras mentes durante un par de segundos a fin de usarla para procesarla posteriormente está relacionada con nuestra memoria funcional visual, una función cognitiva fundamental. ¿Cómo se prepara la memoria funcional visual para la acción? ¿Qué mecanismos proactivos garantizan un comportamiento adaptativo dirigido por la memoria? Para responder a estas preguntas, el proyecto MEMTICIPATION, financiado con fondos europeos, estudiará la accesibilidad y el reclutamiento neuronal de las memorias funcionales individuales. Se basa en la hipótesis de que dichas memorias funcionales están fundamentalmente determinadas y dinámicamente moldeadas por su uso anticipado (nuestras expectativas de cuándo necesitamos elementos de memoria individual y para qué los necesitamos). Los hallazgos arrojarán luz sobre cómo las memorias funcionales se preparan para la acción correcta, en el momento preciso y para la tarea adecuada.
Objetivo
Visual working memory allows us to hold in the fore of our mind those visual representations that are anticipated to become most relevant for ensuing behaviour – guiding our perception as well as action. Thus, while working memories inherently regard the past, their purpose is to guide adaptive behaviour in the near future. Yet, conventional studies of visual working memory consider memory retention (how we remember) regardless of anticipated memory use (what we remember for), and neglect that representations that are held in memory concurrently often serve distinct purposes and afford specific actions.
I posit that the accessibility and neural recruitment of individual working memories are fundamentally determined, and dynamically sculpted, by their anticipated use – i.e. by our expectations of when we need individual memory items, and what we need them for. This opens the fundamental, yet largely overlooked, question of how visual working memories are ‘prepared for action’.
To target this central question, this project will pioneer multiple innovative memory tasks and combine these with cutting-edge brain imaging approaches to dynamically track how working memories are optimised to be ready for the right action (theme 1), ready at the right time (theme 2), and ready for the right task (theme 3). Having made considerable progress, this project will then also asses the identified ‘forward thinking' memory dynamics as a key novel dimension to charter relevant individual and group differences in working memory (theme 4).
Together, this is anticipated to uncover ground-breaking novel insights into the pro-active mechanisms that ensure adaptive memory-guided behaviour – and to change not only the way we view visual working memory, but also how we study and use this core cognitive construct.
Ámbito científico
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
ERC-STG - Starting GrantInstitución de acogida
1081 HV Amsterdam
Países Bajos