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Working Memory

Working Memory

Working memory refers to a combination of components, including short-term memory and attention, that allow an individual to hold information temporarily as we perform cognitive tasks. It is an essential cognitive function that enables the execution of complex tasks such as problem-solving, comprehension, and reasoning. Unlike short-term memory, which simply involves the storage of information for a brief period, working memory involves the active manipulation and processing of this...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Aug 9, 2025

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity

Published on: March 18, 2019

Heading Direction Tracks Internally Directed Selective Attention in Visual Working Memory.

Jude L Thom¹, Anna C Nobre¹, Freek van Ede^1,2

¹University of Oxford, United Kingdom.

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

|February 21, 2023

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Even when focusing attention internally on visual working memory, the head moves towards the remembered item's location. This bodily orienting response suggests shared neural pathways for internal and external attention.

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Last Updated: Aug 9, 2025

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Published on: March 18, 2019

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Published on: April 11, 2025

Area of Science:

Cognitive Neuroscience
Visual Working Memory
Human Motor Control

Background:

Selective attention is typically studied in relation to external sensory stimuli.
Bodily orienting responses, like gaze shifts, accompany attention to external targets.
The extent to which internal attention engages similar orienting responses is less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether internal selective attention within visual working memory elicits head orienting responses.
To compare the temporal dynamics of head and gaze biases during internal attention.

Main Methods:

Three virtual reality experiments were conducted.
Participants memorized two visual items.
Following a delay and a cue, head movements were recorded during memory recall.

Main Results:

Head movements showed a directional bias towards the cued memory item's location.
This head-direction bias occurred even without external visual targets.
The temporal profile of the head bias differed from that of gaze bias.

Conclusions:

Directing attention within visual working memory strongly relates to overt head orienting responses.
These findings suggest common neural circuitry underlies internal and external attention orienting.
Internal attention engages widespread bodily orienting responses, including head movements.