Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Dynamic hidden states underlying working-memory-guided behavior.

Michael J Wolff1,2, Janina Jochim1, Elkan G Akyürek2

  • 1Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.

Nature Neuroscience
|April 18, 2017
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Supporting pregnant and mothering adolescents in their schooling: Insights for policy and practice.

International journal of educational development·2026
Same author

Learning shapes neural geometry in the primate prefrontal cortex.

Nature neuroscience·2026
Same author

Violence Victimisation and Mental Health Distress Among Adolescent Girls Living with HIV in Southern Africa: Does Social Protection Help?

AIDS and behavior·2026
Same author

Feature- and space-based interference with functionally active and passive items in working memory.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
Same author

Colliding Wars: A Systematic Review on HIV Responses in Conflict-Affected Settings.

Public health challenges·2026
Same author

Sustained alpha oscillations serve attentional prioritization in working memory, not maintenance.

Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)·2026
Same journal

Connectomic evidence that ordered activity drives neuromuscular network formation.

Nature neuroscience·2026
Same journal

Noninvasive decoding of typed sentences from human brain activity.

Nature neuroscience·2026
Same journal

Striatal control of amygdalar acetylcholine release during salience-associated processing.

Nature neuroscience·2026
Same journal

Mitochondrial stress response drives microglial senescence.

Nature neuroscience·2026
Same journal

Conditioned accumbal dopamine transients forecast individual preference for drug versus natural rewards and compulsive behavior.

Nature neuroscience·2026
Same journal

The mitochondrial unfolded protein response in human microglia disrupts neuronal-glial communication and promotes senescence.

Nature neuroscience·2026
See all related articles

This study reveals that working memory relies on rapid, hidden neural state transitions. These dynamic coding states allow flexible memory recall and forgetting, measurable via brain

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Science
  • Computational Neuroscience

Background:

  • Theoretical models suggest working memory involves dynamic transitions in 'activity-silent' neural states, like short-term synaptic plasticity.
  • The dynamic coding framework posits these hidden states flexibly configure and dissolve memory networks for behavior and forgetting.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To develop and apply a perturbation approach to measure mnemonic hidden states using electroencephalogram (EEG).
  • To investigate the nature of hidden memory representations and their flexibility.
  • To determine the relationship between hidden-state coding and working memory performance.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized a brain 'pinging' perturbation technique during memory maintenance to measure neural impulse responses.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Analyzed electroencephalogram (EEG) data to decode memory-item-specific information from these responses.
  • Manipulated attentional focus and employed instruction cues for directed forgetting.

    • Main Results:

    • Memory-item-specific information is decodable from the neural impulse response, even without attention or sustained delay activity.
    • Hidden memories demonstrate remarkable flexibility; a forget cue effectively erases a specific memory trace.
    • Temporarily unattended items remain robustly coded, decoupling attention from directed forgetting.
    • The strength of hidden-state coding positively predicts working memory accuracy and precision.

    Conclusions:

    • Working memory is supported by dynamic, activity-silent neural states that are flexibly updated.
    • Brain perturbation techniques can reveal hidden mnemonic representations.
    • Directed forgetting operates on these hidden states, independent of attentional focus, highlighting the flexibility of working memory.