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Science 2 March 2001:
Vol. 291. no. 5509, pp. 1684 - 1685
DOI: 10.1126/science.291.5509.1684
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News of the Week

NEUROBIOLOGY:
Working Memory Helps the Mind Focus

Ingrid Wickelgren

In experiments described on page 1803, cognitive psychologists have pinpointed a surprising new influence on a person's ability to focus their attention: working memory, which is where the brain temporarily stores information used in reasoning and planning. In both behavioral and brain-imaging studies, the researchers have demonstrated that when a person's working memory is occupied, his or her brain cannot filter out distracting sights in a separate attention task--a discovery that may have both public health and medical implications.

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Working Memory for Temporal and Nontemporal Events in Monkeys.
Y. Sakurai (2001)
Learn. Mem. 8, 309-316
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)