Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: Working memory is a limited workspace for temporarily holding information in mind, and it is critical for thinking and problem solving. A person’s ability to perform a variety of complicated intelligent behaviors, such as abstract reasoning, mathematics, and acquiring new languages, depends greatly on his or her specific working memory capacity. Those with a high capacity perform better on measures of fluid intelligence and scholastic aptitude than their low-capacity counterparts (1, 2). For the past 15 years, much of the work on individual differences in capacity has indicated that differences between people are largely because of attentional control, which allows one to focus on relevant information and ignore distractions (3, 4). However, it has always been unclear whether the advantages of high-capacity individuals are due to their ability to “tune in” the important stuff or to their ability to “tune out” the unimportant stuff. In PNAS, Gaspar et al. (5) provide exciting new evidence that the main benefit of a high-capacity mind is the ability to quickly and effectively suppress distracting information.
Authors: Kirsten C. S. Adam, Edward K. Vogel
Institution: University of Chicago
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2301381168