Probing the limits of activity-silent non-conscious working memory.

ABSTRACT: Two types of working memory (WM) have recently been proposed: (i) active WM, relying on sustained neural firing, and (ii) activity-silent WM, for which firing returns to baseline, yet memories may be retained by short-term synaptic changes. Activity-silent WM in particular might also underlie the recently discovered phenomenon of non-conscious WM, which permits even subliminal stimuli to be stored for several seconds. However, whether both states support identical forms of information processing is unknown. Theory predicts that activity-silent states are confined to passive storage and cannot operate on stored information. To determine whether an explicit reactivation is required before the manipulation of information in WM, we evaluated whether participants could mentally rotate brief vis

SUBMITTER: Trubutschek D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6628638 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature